An Alternate Adventure
by JokerInc
Summary: On the first day of Ash's pokemon journey, Professor Oak cannot give him an untrained, wild Pikachu due to Pokemon League regulations. He is instead forced to contact his colleagues in the hopes of allowing the boy to take another route on his adventure. Meanwhile, Gary Oak begins his own pokemon adventure, without the rival he's had all his life. (Rewrite planned/in progress)
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: With my revitalized interest in Pokemon, I have decided to write a story about it. This story will not follow the anime canon very closely, simply due to it not taking place in the same place (Johto, as opposed to Kanto), or the same time (I'm estimating Ash's Kanto journey, his Orange Islands Journey, and time in between as having taken roughly a year combined) There will, of course, be a few things from the anime that I do follow, but this is going to be pretty AU. Edit: I should note that I am adding my own ideas into this. Clearly, the Pokemon League regulations I reference in this story are not canon, they are a plot device I am using to further my story. There are going to be other small and large changes down the line, but this is the most immediately noticeable and the first one that gained a comment of its own.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon, and never will.**

An Altered Adventure

Chapter One

The Early Bird Gets The Worm

Professor Oak was… disappointed, to say the least. His grandson had came and went with his chosen starter, the water pokemon Squirtle. Another child from Pallet, a girl by the name of Leaf, had left with her pokemon, Bulbasaur. The last starter, Charmander, had been taken by that troublemaker Damian. Standing before him was a messy haired boy in his pajamas, apparently he'd been in quite the rush. Oak let out a deep sigh, briefly closing his eyes before addressing the boy in front of him.

"The early bird gets the worm, or in this case, the pokemon." Near the professor and prospective pokemon trainer was a stand containing three empty pokeballs, which had contained pokemon until recently. They were all wide open, having been opened by the boy now speaking to Oak as a somewhat heavy handed lesson. "Does that mean all the pokemon are gone…?" The boy was understandably saddened by this news. It was an important lesson, however and one he would have to reinforce in this case, both due to his own lack of league approved starters and the boy's own need to be prepared for the difficult journey ahead of him. Oak let out another sigh. "Unfortunately so, my boy. I gave the last one to that boy, Damian. I had hoped you would be able to join my grandson on his journey, perhaps as a rival, but it seems that will not be the case…"

The boy looked down at the floor, looking crushed. Oak didn't want to do this to the poor boy, but he did not have any other starters prepared. "You'll just have to wait until the next cycle, it seems…" If only he'd captured that Pikachu earlier, he could have tamed it enough to be a suitable starter for the boy. As it was, giving an unprepared boy what amounted to a wild animal, without any tamed pokemon to assist him, would do him no good.

The boy looked up from the floor at him, tears in his eyes. "...T-There's nothing you can do?"

The Pokemon Professor hated letting down young new trainers, but… "At the moment, I'm afraid not. The next batch of starters, as you no doubt know, will be given out in about six months. Other than that…" Oak briefly paused, racking his mind for alternative options for the boy. It would take at least a few weeks to tame the Pikachu he had captured earlier that day, but it would do as a starter should the boy wish for it. Other than that, his only real option was to contact his colleagues in the other regions, but they were all far too distant… Other than Elm, that is. "I'll look into it for you, perhaps I can find an alternative."

The boy turned his gaze back to the ground, looking resigned to his fate. "Okay Professor…" As the boy walked out of the door, Oak couldn't help but feel sorry for him. To be told for months, years even, that he'd be leaving on his pokemon journey on this day, only to find that that simply wasn't the case? It was the stuff of broken dreams. The Pokemon Professor sighed and walked over to his computer, preparing to send an email he had no doubt would gain no results… Very rarely were any pokemon left over on the day the League issued new starters to trainers, he doubted today would be an exception. Regardless, he pressed the send button, and a message was sent to Johto.

 _Hours later, in Viridian City_

Gary Oak had had a long, long day. Well, it hadn't seemed so long just an hour ago, but things had… changed. Just over an hour ago, he'd arrived in Viridian City, taking under a day like his father had before him, and managing to catch his very own spearow on his way there. He'd arrived in the pokemon center, and managed to get one of the rooms there they kept for trainers. After that, he'd called his grandfather. That is when his day became long. Very long.

His grandfather, Samuel Oak, the Pokemon Professor, had told him that his childhood friend, and hopefully, pokemon rival, wouldn't be joining him on his journey. He and Ash hadn't been getting along terribly well for the past year or so, partly due to Gary's own rising arrogant behavior, and partially due to their perceived incoming rivalry. Now… What had been the point of that, if they weren't going to be rivals? It felt like Gary had really wasted a perfectly good friendship, and now he wasn't even going to get a rival out of it like he'd wanted.

He wished he could change things...

 **Edit: A/N: Due to a review from the anonymous reviewer Eevee, I have begun editing Gary Tales into the main story. Hopefully it turns out well. For now the parts about Gary will be pretty short, but they will likely get longer as the story goes on.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I figure I should put in here, if you guys have any ideas for original characters you want to see in here, just as random pokemon trainers of course, feel free to send them to me. If I like it, you might see them sometime down the line. On another note, I could not find the name of the mountains between Kanto and Johto, so I gave them a name. If any of you know their actual name, if they have one, I'd appreciate the help. Anyways, with that out of the way, let's get started.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.**

An Altered Adventure

Chapter Two

Every Day is a New Day

Ash Ketchum, future pokemon master, was… upset, to say the least. As he sat on his porch, watching the day-to-day life of Pallet Town, its people and its pokemon, he reflected on the events of the previous morning. It just… hadn't been fair. He hadn't meant to stay up that late, he'd just been so excited… And now he had to wait six more months to start his journey. Ash sighed, placing his chin on his fists as he continued looking out over his home.

Several minutes later, Ash rose to his feet. "I shouldn't be so down about this… It just means I'll be more prepared for my journey, right?"

The boy walked down off of his porch, and began walking through his hometown, thinking on what his next move should be. Maybe he should see if the professor would let him help out around the lab? That'd help him learn a bunch for sure! And with that thought, Ash ran towards the Pokemon Lab, spirits lifted considerably from before.

 _Meanwhile, on the other side of the Silverpeak Mountains, in New Bark Town_

Professor Elm was just finishing up with the report he'd had to give to the police. The night before, an unknown thief had stolen one of his two remaining starter pokemon. Thankfully, that was all that had been stolen, though it was a shame such a good-hearted Totodile had gone to a criminal, rather than a promising young trainer. Well, regardless, now that that had been dealt with, he could finally check his emails and see how the first day of the new League cycle had gone for his colleagues.

The most recent email was from Professor Birch over in Hoenn. It seems his son had started his adventure this year, a boy by the name of Brendan. The boy was promising, according to the Professor across the sea, and had chosen a Treecko as his starter, a species that evolved into an impressive breed if he remembered correctly, which, as a Pokemon Professor, of course he did. Other than that, he had a nice crop of trainers come in from the neighboring towns to start their journey.

The next most recent was a message from Professor Oak, but as he was the one Elm idolized the most among his peers as the most renowned among them, he chose to save that one for last, moving to the message from Professor Sycamore instead. He had had quite the group this time around, no less than twelve trainers had received pokemon from the professor. It seemed he had a particular interest in a group of five that had started in Vaniville Town. Professor Elm envied the new trainers somewhat, Kalos was a beautiful region, he simply couldn't wait until he next got the chance to visit there.

The next message was from the beautiful Professor Juniper. That wonderful woman had had a much smaller group than average come through this year. Only two trainers had received pokemon from the woman, but she had high hopes for them nonetheless. As a result, she had quite the group of extra starters left over. She mentioned that she was going to raise them herself to help take care of future batches of starters. Her fully grown starters were beginning to grow old, after all.

The last message before his friend, Professor Oak's message was the message from Professor Rowan. He didn't particularly care for this colleague of his, but he respected him nonetheless. The man had, like Professor Juniper and himself, a smaller than average crop of new trainers. It was to be expected, most Pokemon Professors settled in smaller towns, far from the large cities most people lived in. The only real exception to the rule was Professor Sycamore, who lived in the largest city in his region. Anyways, Professor Rowan had only had three trainers come through this year, and only one of them seemed particularly promising.

And now, finally, Professor Elm was ready to open the message from Oak. He rubbed his hands together excitedly, ready for the interesting news he almost always received from the world famous professor. He brought his hands back to the computer's controls, opened the message, and began to read.

A few scant minutes later, Professor Elm sat back in his chair, before turning and giving the pokeball on his desk a few feet away a considering look. It wasn't a bad idea, he supposed. A bit unusual, of course, but that was usually the case with Professor Oak. He would, of course, have to give the boy a crash course on his region before he let him go, but Professor Oak had assured him that the boy had some potential to him… Professor Elm turned back to his computer and began to type out a response to Professor Oak, detailing his current situation with starters and how he would handle the boy's journey should Oak send him to him.

 _Back to the east of the Silverpeak Mountains, near the edge of Pallet Town_

Ash was sitting on a chair on Professor Oak's pokemon ranch, keeping an eye on the freshly hatched pokemon for him. According to the professor, the newly hatched pokemon wouldn't be ready for training for at least a couple months, and wouldn't be ready for new trainers for at least three or four months. Oak was also attempting to tame a wild pikachu for him, but it didn't seem like it would work out. The pokemon was just too wild, the professor would likely release him.

That was alright though, in just the past few hours, Ash had already learned a lot from the Professor. He'd been given a pokedex, which he'd been idly looking through as he kept an eye on the baby pokemon, and he'd learned a lot. What type of pokemon like what kind of food, what type of pokemon he should avoid in the wild, what type of pokemon were good against other pokemon, he'd even been looking into specific pokemon. In short, Ash was alright with waiting a few months if he had to, he'd just have to make the most of them.

As Ash was looking through a file on a pokemon that was particularly interesting to him, the Gastly pokemon line, he heard the Professor sit on the chair next to him. He looked up to the Professor curiously, the man seemed happy about something. "Professor?"

The Professor smiled at him. "I may have some good news for you, my boy. I sent a message to one of my colleagues yesterday, after you left, to inquire as to whether he himself had any starters left over from the start of the League's new cycle. As it turns out, he does indeed have a starter left over."

Ash's eyes lit up happily, he wouldn't be as delayed as he thought! "When can I get my new pokemon? I can't wait! Do you think I'll still be able to catch up to Gary and everyone?"

Oak coughed uncomfortably. "Well, my boy… Unfortunately, Pokemon League regulations state that new trainers cannot be given a non-native pokemon as a starter. Should you choose to take this route, you will have your journey in the neighboring region of Johto."

Ash was… split on this decision. On one hand, he would be able to start his pokemon journey mostly on time. On the other hand… "I won't be able to compete with everyone? Gary, Leaf and them?"

The Professor gave him a thoughtful look. "Well, it really depends. On your journey through Johto, you won't run into them. Should you all make it to the Pokemon League, however… Johto shares Indigo Plateau with Kanto. You could face them at the end of your journey, should you succeed."

"Then I'll do it. I'll go on a journey through Johto, I'll become the greatest pokemon master of all time, and I'll take Gary on in the Pokemon League Tournament!" Ash's eyes were shining with determination, this may be a detour on his journey, but he'd make the best of it, and become the greatest trainer of all!

Professor Oak let out a chuckle. "Not so fast, my boy, aren't you forgetting something?"

Ash's look abruptly changed from determined to confused. "What do you mean?"

"Like with your journey through Kanto, you must also gain your mother's permission to go to Johto. After all, it is a separate region, even if it is fairly close. There's a whole mountain range between Kanto and Johto, my boy." Oak had a mischievous look on his face, he knew Ash's mother would approve, it was more or less the same distance in the end after all, just with the added distance of the Silverpeak Mountains.

"Do you think she'll let me go? I didn't think of that, Johto isn't too far away is it?" Ash had a slightly panicked look on his face, he really wanted to go on his journey right away.

Oak let out another chuckle, shifting forward and standing from the chair he'd been sitting in, observing the now sleeping baby pokemon as he talked to Ash. "Of course she will, it's not that far away after all. Make sure to let her know Professor Elm is going to give you a crash course on Johto, just so you're more prepared." Oak smiled at the boy. "It might help to promise you'll call whenever you can, too."

Ash jumped to his feet. "You're right! Mom knows how important this is to me, she'd never make me wait! Thanks Professor, I'll be back tomorrow!" Ash yelled out as he ran off back to his house.

It was getting late, wasn't it? Professor Oak looked up at the now setting sun. "I suppose I should prepare transportation for the boy. Hmm… He'll need someone to go with him won't he? I could do with a visit to Professor Elm anyways, catch up on new developments…" And with that, Oak returned to his lab.

 _A short time later, in Viridian City_

Gary had spent most of the day in Route 22, west of Viridian City. While he was there, he'd trained up the two pokemon he already had, as well as catching a new one, a male nidoran. Currently, he was on the video phone in the pokemon center, trying to call his grandfather. After a few rings, he received an answer from the old professor. "Hello?"

"Hey Gramps…" Gary more or less sighed out, as his mind drifted to the conversation he'd had the night before.

"Gary! I have good news! Well, better news than last time we talked, that is. Before I get to that, however, how are your pokemon doing?" The old man seemed more cheerful this time than last time he'd called, maybe… Nah. "They're doing fine, Gramps. I caught a new one today, a male nidoran."

"A male nidoran, huh? Those evolve into quite the powerful pokemon, you know. A good choice. Anyways, I suppose I should get to the good news I have, yes?" The Professor smiled at Gary through the camera, he really seemed happy with whatever this news was. "Yeah, what do you got Gramps?"

"Well, like I said yesterday, Ash won't be able to join you on your journey, unfortunately. However, I contacted one of my fellow professors over in Johto, and I managed to work out a deal. The short version is that Ash will be going on his journey over in Johto while you are having yours in Kanto." Gary looked at his grandfather consideringly. Unlike Ash, he had a fairly in depth knowledge of pokemon, Kanto, and its league, mostly due to his having been raised by a Pokemon Professor.

Due to his knowledge, he was well aware of the fact that Kanto shared its League with Johto. The reason for it was pretty simple, the war that had happened around the time of Gary and Ash's birth had cut down most of the two region's most powerful trainers, including his own father and, he was assuming, Ash's as well. More importantly, however, this meant that… "So I'll be able to meet Ash in the Pokemon League?" The fact that he hadn't used his mocking nickname of Ash was a clear giveaway of just how seriously he was taking this.

His grandfather smiled at him. "Assuming he's half the trainer… Well, I have no doubt he'll make it, Gary." The old man had the audacity to smirk at him, "The question is, will you? Kanto is a larger region, after all."

Gary gained a half annoyed, half determined look on his face. "Of course I will! Tell Ash I'll meet him at the Pokemon League, okay Gramps?"

The professor let out an amused chuckle. "Of course, my boy. Now, I really have to go, I'm trying to set up transport to Johto for Ash and I at the moment."

"Okay Gramps. I'm going to set out for Pewter City in the morning, I'll call you when I get there. I'm gonna take my time on this one," Gary said, preparing to exit the call.

"Goodbye, Gary."

"Bye, Gramps."

Gary ended the call.

 **A/N: Unfortunately, at the moment, I can't see any of the reviews that have been posted so far. Thank you to the two people who have reviewed thus far, however. I'm certain I'll be able to see them sooner or later. As another side note, if you happen to see any mistakes somewhere in any of my chapters, feel free to point them out to me. I'll do my best to solve any mistakes I can.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.**

An Alternate Adventure

Chapter Three

Every Journey Begins with a Step

Ash was leaning over the side of a boat, grinning as he felt the ocean air fill his lungs. The previous night he had managed to convince his mom to let him journey through Johto, and now he was on a fishing vessel headed to Cherrygrove City. Professor Oak had told him that he had to call in a favor with an old friend of his to get this ride, probably the fisher in charge of the boat, seeing as the professor was currently talking to the man inside of the boat. Regardless, Ash was perfectly happy with this situation. He could watch the pokemon in the ocean as they sailed through the water, and in just three days time, he'd be in Johto, on his way to New Bark Town to start his new adventure!

Professor Oak was equally thrilled. One of his old friends from when he'd been on his own pokemon journey many years ago, Henry Wilson, just happened to have been in town on just the day he'd needed him! Now he could reminisce about the old days with an old friend, whilst also accomplishing his own goal of getting Ash to Professor Elm, and catching up with the good professor while he was there, of course.

 _Meanwhile, in New Bark Town_

Professor Elm may have been freaking out a bit. He had not been expecting Oak to be coming personally! He just wasn't ready, but then, who was ready for a visit from the legendary Samuel Oak? The man may have settled down, but he was still once one of the most powerful pokemon trainers in the world! Not to mention the advancements, the discoveries he'd made! Elm just wasn't prepared, he couldn't be!

Professor Elm's assistant watched in surprise as the professor ran back and forth, organizing and reorganizing his lab for a guest who wouldn't be there for at least a few more days. "...Sir? Is everything okay?"

"Yes, yes. Everything is fine! I just wasn't prepared, you see. I have things to show him, of course, but is it enough? How could it be? This is Samuel Oak we're talking about!" The professor rambled out, continuing to organize his lab.

The assistant blinked a few times, and then let out a sigh. "Sir, we've made multiple discoveries since he was last here, remember? He was perfectly satisfied with what we had last time, and we'd only made one new discovery at that point, remember?"

Professor Elm paused in his organizing. "...You're right. Of course you are, what would I do without you, James? I should be getting ready for that new trainer he's bringing instead, shouldn't I?" Elm then walked over to a stand that held a single pokeball, picked the pokeball up, and released the pokemon within from its ball.

 _In Cherrygrove City, four days later_

"Well, that took a bit longer than expected, didn't it my boy?" Oak said, looking down at his grandson's childhood friend.

"Yeah, that storm was really crazy! I'm glad Henry was so ready for it." Ash was looking around at the city curiously, having never even seen pictures of it, unlike most of the cities in Kanto.

Oak smiled, joking a bit to himself at his absent friend's expense. "He certainly is… experienced. It did cost us a day's travel time, however, so we'll have to take a shortcut."

"A shortcut?" Ash looked up at Oak curiously, how could one take a shortcut all the way to another city? Most of the routes were pretty straightforward, after all.

"Of course, my boy, of course. I happened to have brought a few of my pokemon with us, in case we ran into trouble. I might as well give you a taste of what you might be able to do in the future since we have the opportunity." As Oak said this, he pulled a pokeball out of the bag he wore over his shoulder, and released the pokemon within, that being Oak's practically ancient Charizard.

The aged, but still strong looking pokemon let out a loud roar as he flexed his wings, startling nearby pedestrians and birds. The Charizard was huge, easily one and a half times the normal size of its species, and its rippling muscles indicated that it had maintained its training somewhat over the years. When the pokemon was finished declaring its superiority to the surrounding city, it turned its gaze to Oak. "Hello, old friend." Oak reached out, running his hand down the powerful pokemon's snout fondly as he spoke to it. "Are you ready for a flight? I know it's been awhile."

Charizard let out a snort and gave Oak an amused look, of course he was ready.

Ash, meanwhile, was looking at the huge pokemon in awe. This was what he could one day train a pokemon to be? Amazing! He couldn't wait! "Professor Oak, we're gonna fly it to New Bark?" Ash asked excitedly, amazed at the prospect.

Charizard let out a deep growl, seemingly annoyed at the boy, who started in surprise. Oak patted the huge pokemon on the side. "Now, now. He doesn't know any better, old friend. Now, Ash. Do you know what you did wrong?"

"U-Uhh… No? What did I do?" Ash was genuinely confused, he didn't know what was wrong.

"Ah, my fault I suppose. I should have told you beforehand. Charizard is a rather proud pokemon, he likely didn't appreciate being called an 'it'. This is a good lesson for your future, however. I suggest you learn how to tell the difference between pokemon's genders whilst you're on your journey, so that you can avoid offending one similarly in the future." Oak smiled at the boy, before, turning back to the Charizard. "Now, old friend, you don't mind giving me and Ash here a ride over to New Bark Town, do you? We're in Cherrygrove, so it should be the town to the East."

Charizard let out a snort, but lowered himself to allow the two to climb onto his back. The two proceeded to do so, and Charizard took off into the air.

Ash smiled widely as they flew through the air, holding his cap with one hand as the air flowed through his hair, he could see everything from up here! He couldn't wait to have a flying pokemon of his own, it'd be great! Ash looked around, seeing the mountains to the North and East, the forests to the West, and the deep blue ocean to the south. And of course, the rapidly approaching town to the East.

Oak had his own wide smile on his face, it had been so long since he'd had his Charizard fly him anywhere. He mentally thanked the aged pokemon, he knew it was keeping the flight nice and smooth for him, due to the fragility of his own old age. Perhaps he should go flying more often in the future? It would likely do him some good.

Professor Elm was waiting on a lawn chair just outside his lab. Today was the day Oak had said he'd arrive, so where was he? Perhaps the storm he'd seen on the news had slowed him down? Regardless, Professor Elm was content to sit there and go over his notes until they arrived or the sun went down, whichever came first.

Of course, what he wasn't prepared for was for a huge pseudo-dragon to suddenly land not ten feet away from him, and his natural reaction was to let out something between a shriek and a squeak as he fell out of his chair and scooted back towards his door. Until, that is, he saw Professor Oak on its back. "O-Oak?" The distinguished professor managed to get out.

Oak looked down at him from the Charizard's back. "Well hello there, Professor Elm! Looks like you brought us to the right place, eh Charizard?" The old man patted the grizzled pseudo-dragon's back, which let out a confirming snort, accompanied by smoke that flew into Elm's face.

Ash, meanwhile, was not idle. He immediately jumped off of the pokemon's back and ran over to the fallen Professor Elm, barraging him with questions. "You have my pokemon right? I'm so ready to see it! How long am I gonna learn from you before I can leave on my journey? I'm a fast learner I promise!"

Professor Elm was a bit overwhelmed, and simply rubbed his temples. Professor Oak jumped off of Charizard's back and recalled him, before letting out a chuckle and saying, "Let the poor man breath, my boy! I think we may have almost given him a heart attack!"

Professor Elm slowly got to his feet and turned, gesturing them to follow him as he walked into the lab.

Ash and Oak followed him in, whereupon he sat down in his desk chair and examined them, looking a bit exasperated. "...Did you have to arrive like that, Oak?"

Oak smiled at his colleague. "Why of course! We were running late after all, nasty business with that storm and all. But anyways, I do believe you have something for Ash here?"

Ash was practically bouncing on his feet with excitement, what pokemon would he get? On his way over here, he'd gone through his pokedex, looking over all the pokemon in Johto. Of the three traditional Johto starter pokemon, of course, he wanted Cyndaquil. Its final evolution was just so cool! He wouldn't mind either of the others, of course, but they just didn't have quite as much of a cool factor to him. Regardless, he'd be happy with whichever of the three he got!

Professor Elm, looked at the excited boy with some amusement. "Of course, of course. Its right over there, on the stand." He gestured to a stand a short distance away. "It is a bit of an unusual choice of starters for a professor-given pokemon, but it is nonetheless quite an exceptional pokemon. It was a gift from one of the trainers I previously gifted a starter to, actually."

"Unusual? So it's not a starter you'd normally give out?" Ash questioned, his mind swirling with all the possibilities. He hadn't quite gotten through all the pokemon in the Johto dex yet, he'd mainly focused on the three normal starters.

"Indeed. Like I said, it is still a good pokemon to start with, regardless. Go ahead and let it out, I already spoke to it about you coming. I'm sure it's very excited to see you." Professor Elm smiled at the boy, gesturing to the ball.

Ash stepped over to the stand and picked the pokeball up reverently, wondering what could be inside. He turned away from the stand and pressed the release button, releasing his very own pokemon.

After a brief red flash of light, standing in front of him on four legs was a pokemon with Yellow and black ears, a yellow and black tail with a yellow ball on the end, a blue face and legs, and a wool covered body. It was about two feet tall, and seemed very happy to see him. Upon being released, it proceeded to walk around him in circles, looking up at him.

Ash looked curiously down at the pokemon, before crouching down to a sitting position and running his hand through its wool, a slight shock hitting his hand as he does so due to some static electricity "Now what are you..?" Ash pulls his pokedex out of his pack, pressing the button to register the pokemon he had before him.

"A female Mareep huh? I think you and me will get along just fine. Your evolutions look pretty nice too. Are you ready to come with me and meet some new friends?" Ash smiled as he ran his hand through the Mareep's soft wool, which let out a friendly noise and climbed onto his lap.

Professor Oak smiled at the boy and his new pokemon, happy that this had worked out so well for him. "Well, Professor Elm. I think we should leave the boy to bond with his new pokemon. You mentioned you had a few things to show me?"

"Of course, of course! Come, I put everything on this computer in here." Professor Elm walked deeper into the Lab, gesturing Oak to follow him.

 **A/N: And there we go. I decided to give Ash a Mareep. It didn't feel right to give him a regular starter, and obviously I wasn't going to give him a Pikachu. The Mareep evolution line just happens to be one of my favorites, and it fits pretty well with Ash I think. I'm going to have him nickname it in the next chapter.**

 **I never really understood Oak giving Ash an untrained, wild Pikachu as a starter. You'd think that they'd give every trainer a well mannered pokemon to start with, as they have no real experience taming pokemon. I imagine it is much easier to tame a pokemon while you have pokemon of your own, so I decided it would make sense to have a League Regulation about it. If it also helps my story along, well, it is what it is.**

 **This'll probably be the last chapter I finish for today, I'm going to try to update these as regularly as possible, but the chapters are likely only going to get longer from here, so I wouldn't expect updates anywhere near as fast as I've done in the past 24 hours. As Always, just let me know if I messed anything up, I'll try to fix it as soon as possible.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I can't stop writing. I also still can't see any of the comments on the story. I believe this is due to it having been less than 24 hours since I wrote and posted the first of the three chapters I've completed so far.**

 **Reviews Response: I also figured out a way to look at the reviews I've received so far on the story, and I really appreciate them. I'm glad you guys like my story so far. There's one in particular I'm going to respond to, from St Elmo's Fire. I appreciate the criticism, I went ahead and fixed the capitalization on the earlier chapters. If I missed anything, feel free to let me know. As for the story not registering under Anime, as well as the not having Ash in the character category (though you didn't mention that), it just hadn't gone through when I made the story. I put it in, but I guess it just didn't register. And finally, your point on the Pokemon League Regulations that I'm using as a plot point in the story. This story is not following canon particularly closely, as I mentioned in the A/N on the first chapter. (Which I have now done a small edit to) I'm planning to do something kind of between the Anime and the Games, with a few of my own ideas mixed in for the simple fact that a lot of what was in the Anime and Games didn't make too much sense. Anyways, thanks for commenting, and thanks to those of you who followed and favorited.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.**

An Alternate Adventure

Chapter 4

Taking the First Step

Ash was standing at the beginning of Route 29, on the edge of New Bark Town. His new friend, Mareep, was standing at his feet. It had been quite a long week, learning everything Professor Elm had wanted him to know. He'd learned everything from what pokemon were most aggressive, to what parts of each city he should avoid, to the locations of all the pokemon centers not inside city limits. Needless to say, Professor Elm had made sure he was as prepared as he could possibly be on such short notice. Ash knew things about Johto now that he wouldn't have the slightest clue of in Kanto! And now, it was time for him to finally begin his pokemon journey.

Ash looked down at Mareep. "Are you ready, girl?" He smiled down at the young pokemon. In the past week, he and the pokemon had spent a lot of time together. She was incredibly well behaved and friendly, much as you'd expect from a new trainer's starting pokemon. As she gave a soft bleat in response, he proceeded to step forward, exiting the town and walking into Route 29.

Ash proceeded at a fairly sedate pace. Johto was a smaller region than Kanto, and he had weeks that he could spend between each city, should he choose to. His real concern was preparing his new pokemon for the journey ahead. She would do amazing against the first gym he had planned to go up against, but at the moment she simply wasn't quite ready. He'd have to train her against some of the wild pokemon on his way. Or maybe he'd run into some weaker trainers on his way, and he could battle them?

A few hours after Ash had begun his walk through Route 29, he chose to sit under a tree in the shade, relaxing there with Mareep for awhile. He waited patiently, knowing that without anyone walking through the route, it was likely that some pokemon would come out from the trees sooner or later. Soon enough, he was proven right as a small group of sentrets came bounding out of the trees, it seems they were playing together. A short distance away, at the edge of the treeline, Ash could see a furret watching over the young pokemon. "Well, Mareep. Now's as good a time as any. Why don't you go see if you can get one of those sentrets to have a practice battle with you?"

Mareep gave a confirming bleat before standing and bounding over to the group of sentrets, startling them briefly before she playfully tackled one of them, taking this more as a game than anything. "Well, I guess that works too." Ash smiled, watching his pokemon play with the wild pokemon. He'd chosen this particular species of pokemon to have his starter practice with due to their playful nature that he'd read about in his pokedex. So far it seemed to be going well, the furret watching over the sentrets was simply letting it happen due to the playful nature of the fighting.

An hour or two later, after a short lunch, Ash and Mareep were back on the road, Mareep now in her pokeball resting. She was quite tired from all the 'battling' she'd done against the sentrets. Ash himself was perfectly satisfied with the training she'd gotten done with the wild pokemon. It might not seem like much, but exercise was exercise. The next item on his agenda for his pokemon, however, was not all fun and games. He intended to try to teach her how to harness her natural electricity. It would probably have to wait until the next Pokemon Center they found, the places had special machines specifically meant for young electric types to feed off of, and it would help Mareep get a feel for her own natural electricity.

Later on, after a nice, filling dinner, Ash and Mareep settled down in a small, pre-made campground intended for traveling trainers. Ash had got a small fire going, and was watching it as he relaxed on a tree stump. A short distance away, his starter was having a playful fight with a rattata that had wandered onto the campground. The rattata wasn't being particularly playful about it, but it couldn't really do much through Mareep's thick wool, so it wasn't really a problem. Ash was perfectly content to let his pokemon handle it on her own as he took another look through his pokedex, currently doing research into the gym leaders of Johto.

As it turns out, the gyms worked in a kind of interesting way. The majority of them could be done in any order, they'd just use pokemon matching around your level of skill, based on the amount of badges you had. The exception was the seventh and eighth badges. Due simply to the danger of the area the towns were located in, the last two of the gyms had to be done in order. This was, according to his pokedex, because they didn't want to endanger new trainers, which made plenty of sense to Ash.

After he was finished researching the gyms, Ash moved on to the Indigo Conference, which he had not yet looked into too much. He'd seen it on tv, of course, but he really didn't know too much about how it worked. According to his pokedex, there were preliminaries a week before the actual tournament, to whittle down the number of participants to an even sixteen. Those battles weren't aired, but would be available to the public to watch in person, should they choose to. Once the actual tournament started, each round of it had its own day. The first day for the first eight battles, the second for the next four, and so on. All of the tournament battles were aired on live tv, and whoever won would gain a pass to take on the Elite Four themselves, redeemable at any time. Ash, obviously, simply couldn't wait til he was strong enough to take on the Indigo Conference. According to his pokedex, the next one was in just under six months, as he'd been told previously by Professor Oak.

Ash was certain he'd be ready in that time, he'd make sure of it. In order to do so, he'd need a plan. He couldn't just go around catching pokemon willy nilly and hope it would be what he needed. No, he needed to find the right pokemon for him and, like many of the things he'd he'd had to do recently, that would take research. And so he got to work, researching as he watched his pokemon playfully scare off wild pokemon out of the corner of his eye.

Hours later, soon after the sun had gone down, and after Mareep had curled up near the small fire to go to sleep, Ash got his sleeping bag out and settled down next to his starter, and went to sleep.

 _Meanwhile, in Viridian Forest_

Gary had been in Viridian Forest for just over a week and a half. Originally, his plan had been to charge ahead, knock out gym badge after gym badge. It was one of the reasons he'd picked squirtle in the first place, after all. He knew he'd have an advantage against the first gym leader he'd face in Kanto with it, or rather, him. Now, though? There really wasn't much of a point in rushing it. He had plenty of time to get through the region, and no one to race ahead of and brag to later.

So, with this in mind, Gary was currently focussing on training his pokemon. Currently, Nidoran and Squirtle were working together against Spearow, trying to get used to dealing with flying pokemon. Spearow, meanwhile, was doing fly-by maneuvers. It seemed to be going pretty well so far. Every once in awhile a wild pokemon would get involved in the training session, Viridian Forest was teeming with them after all. The pokemon trio would proceed to do their utmost to drive whatever pokemon it was away, using their teamwork to force even some stronger pokemon to leave their training alone. It hadn't failed yet.

With that said, however, Gary was getting pretty tired of being in this bug-filled place. He would probably head out the next morning.

 _The following morning, Route 29_

Ash woke up to Mareep jumping on his chest, then rolling over his face to the ground. He could hear the pidgeys proclaiming the new day, and it seems the sun had just risen. Ash let out a groan as he slowly sat up. "Mareep, why'd you have to wake me up so early..?" Ash let out a yawn, stretching out before giving Mareep a grumpy look.

Mareep gave a happy bleat before immediately running over to Ash's pack and attempting to get into it… Life is hard without hands.

Ash smiled tiredly and got up, walking over to the pack and picking it up, before pulling out some pokemon food and setting it down for Mareep. "Hungry, huh? I guess I can understand that. You used up a lot of energy playing with those wild pokemon, after all."

Ash walked back over to the former fire, now ashes, and placed some more wood on it before going about starting the fire. He then proceeded to make himself some breakfast.

Once Ash and Mareep were done with their respective meals, the duo set out to continue their journey to Cherrygrove City. Their sedate pace had gotten them halfway there the previous day, and today they'd make it the rest of the way, assuming they didn't hit any road bumps.

The previous night, Ash had decided what the first pokemon he wanted to add to his team was, assuming he could find it. In order to get it, he'd have to go into Dark Cave. A dangerous venture, to be sure, but as long as he didn't go too far in he should be fine.

 _Pewter City, shortly after noon_

Gary was sitting in front of a video phone in the pokemon center of Pewter City. In front of him, the phone was making a ringing tone as it attempted to call his Grandfather's lab… For the third time. He'd also called his house, but it seemed no one was home. This time, however, it seemed Gary was in luck, as the ringing tone ended and his Grandpa's lab came into view. Instead of the renowned professor, however… There was Delia Ketchum.

The brown haired woman, upon seeing him, let a smile fall into place on her face. "Gary! It's been so long since I've seen you! You grew so much!" It really had been quite a long time since he'd seen the woman, ever since he and Ash had really fallen out. The woman had been quite an important figure in Gary's early life, as he and Ash had been friends since around the time of their birth.

Gary gave out a slightly nervous laugh. "Uhh, yeah, it has been a while hasn't it? But, uhh… Do you know where gramps is? I was kinda calling for him…"

The woman smiled knowingly at him, evidently she'd caught on to the fact that he was trying to avoid talking to her. "Well, since you're so insistent. He left about… I'd say about a week and a half ago? Anyways, he was heading over to Johto with Ash. He said something about meeting up with one of his colleagues there. I imagine it was Professor Elm he was talking about."

Gary smiled nervously at the woman. "Uhh, thanks Mrs. Ketchum! Bye!" Gary hung up on the woman, and let out a sigh. He hadn't been ready to talk to her, she always had a way of making him feel guilty about things… Like that time he'd tripped Ash when they were kids… Anyways, he knew where his Grandfather was now, so… He dialed in the number for Professor Elm's lab.

After a few rings, the phone was answered and another lab came into view. In front of the camera, there was a man wearing a labcoat. He looked kind of nerdy, around twenty years old, and was wearing a nametag with the name 'James' on it. "Hello, Professor Elm's lab. How can I help you?" The man looked kind of bored, just giving out what was probably a standard greeting to whoever called the lab.

"Ah, I would like to speak to Professor Oak, if he's there. I'm his grandson."

The man looked at him closely for a few seconds, seemingly examining his face. "...Alright, I'll go get him for you." The man walked away from the phone, leaving the room. While he was one, Gary idly looked at the room he could see through the camera. There wasn't anything particularly interesting that he could see, just a few computers and a couple pokedexes laying on a table.

A short couple minutes later, another man walked into the room the assistant, James, had left through. This man was much more recognizable to the boy. "Gramps!" Upon seeing him, the old man let a smile slide into place on his face. "Gary, my boy! How have you been? Did you get your first badge yet?"

Gary rubbed the back of his head in mild embarrassment. "No, I didn't get my badge yet. I kinda spent a while in the forest. I wanted to train my pokemon up a little before I took on Brock."

The elderly professor nodded his head understandably. "Not quite what I'd expected you to do, but I can see why you did it. I'd expected you to take on the leader as soon as you could, probably using squirtle as a crutch to make the battle easier."

Gary smiled at the old man, he knew him far too well. "That was my original plan, yeah. I just decided to take my time, you know? Not like I'm racing anyone, after all."

"Good, good. It seems my actions have taught more than one person an important lesson… Speaking of which, Ash left to begin his journey yesterday." The old man smiled at him.

Gary very briefly debated whether he should even ask, no doubt his grandfather saw it coming, after all… Gary sighed in defeat. "What pokemon did he start with?"

His grandfather let out a quick chuckle. "I'm glad you asked, Gary! He started with a mareep. They're native to Johto, really quite an interesting species. Perhaps you should look into it?"

"Yeah, I'll do that… When are you coming home?"

The professor briefly tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I'm thinking I'll leave in a day or two. Should be home before you're in Cerulean, my boy."

Gary nodded. "Alright. I'll call you when I get there, okay Gramps?"

"Okay Gary. Goodbye."

"Bye."

Gary hung up.

 **(-o-)**

Hours later, Ash was sitting on a chair in Cherrygrove City's Pokemon Center. Today's journey had been fairly uneventful, Mareep had, as the day before, played with some wild pokemon on their walk, but it was largely uneventful. Cherrygrove City itself had been more interesting, to be honest. When he was here last, with the professor, it had been a short lived visit. Today he had spent an hour or two just walking around, taking in the sights. He'd even managed to get some advice from a hiker on his trip to Dark Cave. Apparently the entrance he would want to take would be the one near the beginning of Route 31.

Route 31 was about three day's travel to the north through Route 30, assuming he took around the same pace he'd taken so far. After that, instead of going west immediately, he'd have to take about a half day's travel northeast, and then find the entrance to the cave. Luckily, the entrance he was looking for would be marked by a sign, otherwise he might walk into some ursaring's den or something. He'd probably have to stay in the cave for a day or two, so Ash had already gotten supplies for two weeks worth of travel time, despite the path to Violet City only being about five days.

Putting that aside, Ash now needed to do what he'd been dreading since he'd arrived in Cherrygrove. He needed to call his mother. He was currently sitting in front of the public video phones the center provided for trainers, with Mareep a short distance away playing with an electrical generator… thing, that the pokemon center provided specifically for electric pokemon. Apparently because many of them feed off of electricity to help train their own abilities, which was what he was trying to get Mareep to do right now. It was going fairly well, though she seemed to be using it more as a toy than as something to help her grow.

Without further ado, Ash finally moved his hand forward and pressed the call button. The phone rang three times, and was answered with a cheery, "Hello!" No video feed pulled up, however, probably because he'd called the home phone.

"Hey mom." Ash let out, trying to hide how happy he was to talk to her.

"Ash! How are you doing? Where are you? Are you okay? Did you remember to pack your underwear? How's your pokemon doing? I miss you so much!" Ash's mom, Delia Ketchum, immediately let loose a flood of questions on the poor boy. Admittedly, he'd been expecting it, but it didn't make it any easier to deal with.

"I'm doing good, in Cherrygrove City, I'm okay, I did, and Mareep's fine." Mareep currently had an arc of electricity between her and the generator, that was fine right? "I miss you too, mom." He smiled, happy to be talking to his mom again. He hadn't expected to miss her as much as he already did.

"Okay Ash, that's good… Where are you going next?" Ash winced, he wasn't sure how his mom would take his plans to go to Dark Cave. "I'm going to go up Route 30, and then through Route 31 on my way to Violet City. I'm thinking I'm gonna stop in Dark Cave on my way there, there's a pokemon I want to catch there." And so he deliberately didn't mention the possibility of it being dangerous.

"Okay Ash… What pokemon are you planning to catch there?" Ash smiled, despite his mom not being able to see it through the phone. "That's a secret, mom. I want to surprise you. I know you'll like it though! Just wait till you see it! You think you could go over to Professor Oak's next time I call so you can see?"

"Yes, of course I can do that! In fact, now that you mention it... I had a call there just today, when I was checking on the lab for the professor. Guess who it was?" His mom sounded both excited and moderately annoyed... There wasn't a wide range of people that could be, especially among the people that had the lab's personal number. "Was it Gary?"

"It was. Can you believe that boy? Practically helped raise him, and he won't even stay on the phone to catch up..." His mom let out a huff, sounding pretty put off.

"That does sound like him... Wish he'd stop that stuff. Did he say anything important?"

Ash's mom sighed. "Not really, he just wanted to know where his 'Gramps' was."

"I guess I'll just ask the Professor about it sometime. Has anything interesting been happening at home?"

And so the call continued for the next hour or so, Ash and his mom happily conversing as Mareep continued to do potentially unsafe things with the generator, scaring nearby trainers into backing away a bit.

 **(-o-)**

Ash took the final step out of Cherrygrove City, and entered Route 30. His plans for the day had him very excited, and so he slipped into a run, calling out to Mareep, "Come on, girl! We got a lot to do today!" As Mareep fell into a run with him, he thought about his plans. Her playing with electricity the previous day had been an important step in her training, once he was far enough from the city and found a good clearing he was going to take the next step.

A short time later, Ash slowed to a walk and turned off the road, heading into a small clearing and sitting down on the edge of it under a tree. Mareep ran on over to him, and plopped onto his lap. With a smile, Ash gave her head a quick rub before he moved on to business. "Alright, Mareep. Are you ready to start training? I want to teach you how to use your electricity some today."

With those words, Mareep hopped off his lap and moved into what might have been a battling position, if she weren't a fluffy sheep pokemon. Ash let out a smile at the amusing sight, and began his attempt at teaching her how to use her natural electricity. "Alright, so, you remember how the electricity from that generator felt yesterday? I want you to try to make that feeling happen again, but without the generator."

The next few hours were very, very long. Ash had, of course, expected this. Teaching a pokemon to pull out something they've never had any experience with before would always be a long process, or at least that was what his pokedex said about it. Normally, it could take a week or more for a pokemon to learn how to use a new elemental move. It was the reason there were so few powerful trainers, most people didn't have the patience, or the natural aptitude for teaching pokemon how to use moves. It was also the main reason there were so few well rounded trainers, especially among the higher tiers of pokemon battling. For every new move your pokemon learned, you would have to learn how to teach it to them yourself.

Luckily for Ash, he had both a natural aptitude for training pokemon, and a Mareep. The species learned electric moves fairly easily, likely due to the natural static electricity that built up in their wool exposing them to the element from the day of their birth. It was just far more familiar to them than it was to some other electric types. It was the same reason pikachus were able to learn electric moves so easily, they had natural deposits of electricity in their cheeks.

Because of these reasons, after just a few hours, Mareep was reasonably capable of throwing electricity around. She was certainly no Zapdos, but her shocks had a bit of kick to them. For now, it was good enough, and the two had a quick lunch before heading back onto the road.

 _Meanwhile, in the Pewter City Pokemon Gym_

It was finally time. Gary was about to take on his first pokemon gym. He'd been waiting for this moment for his entire life, and now it had finally come.

For this hour of the day, the stands were extremely full. Word that Gary Oak, grandson of the legendary Samuel Oak, and son of another renowned pokemon trainer, was taking on his first gym had spread throughout the city like wildfire, and the stands were filled with a roaring crowd. He even had a few cheerleaders there, unfortunately. Over the roar of the crowd, the announcer's voice came over the speakers. "This will be a two on two pokemon battle, between Gary Oak of Pallet Town, and Brock Harrison, gym leader of Pewter City! There are no switches allowed, and each battle will continue until one pokemon is knocked out or returned!" The crowd roared in approval, the battle was finally ready to begin.

Gary was pretty impressed at the teen across him. The requirements to become a gym leader were very high. At a minimum you had to have ranked at least top 16 in a league tournament, have a monotype team of at least a seven badge level, with weaker teams for the weaker trainers, and there had to be an opening available. You also had to get approval from the league itself before you could even think about it. The fact that the teenager across the field from him, no older than fifteen, had accomplished all that so young was nothing short of amazing.

The announcers voice pierced the crowd once more. "Gym Leader, challenger! On the count of three, release your first pokemon onto the field!" Gary prepared himself, his hand resting on his pokeball. "One!" Gary pulled his pokeball off of his belt. "Two!" Gary enlarged the pokeball. "Three!" Gary pressed the release on his pokeball, releasing Nidoran from his pokeball as he hoped Brock had chosen the pokemon he expected him to. Across the field from Nidoran was a rock pokemon with two arms extending from its head. Gary grinned, just what he'd wanted.

"Nidoran, get in there and use-" "Geodude, rollout!" Gary was interrupted by the more experienced pokemon trainer, and Geodude shifted into a ball, rolling fast at Nidoran. "Nidoran, jump over it!" Nidoran let out an affirmative sounding noise as he jumped over the geodude, letting it roll past. "Geodude, keep rolling out!" The pokemon circled around, and hurled back towards Gary's nidoran, faster this time. "Nidoran, jump and use double kick when you're over it!" The nidoran, barely having time to react to the order, jumped up and slammed his back legs down onto the rock pokemon as it rolled under him, simultaneously causing both Nidoran and Geodude to crash, kicking dust into the air.

When the dust cleared, Geodude was clearly unconscious from both the kick and the following crash, while Nidoran seemed more or less fine, just dazed from its fall to the ground. "And Geodude is defeated! But will Gary have what it takes to handle Brock's next pokemon?" As the announcer, yells, Brock releases the staple of his badge one team, Onix. The snake pokemon was massive, towering over both of the trainers and Nidoran. Brock, upon sending it out yelled out. "Onix use tackle!" The huge pokemon immediately flung its body head first at the Nidoran.

"Nidoran, jump and double kick!" The small pokemon followed his trainers orders, despite the fear it felt, and jumped into the air, slamming its feet into Onix' head and getting sent flying away.

As the dust cleared from Onix' attack, it slowly rose its head up, before shaking it. Nidoran, meanwhile, was recalled by Gary. "You did enough. Now, let's finish this, Squirtle!"

Gary released his second pokemon from its pokeball. The little water pokemon looked up at the rock type confidently. He was fairly sure he could have taken this whole gym on himself, if Gary had had him do so. Either way, he would have some fun. "Squitle, use water gun!" The water pokemon opened its jaws, and released a jet of water at the larger pokemon. "Onix, try to dodge and get in there for bind!"

The water briefly hit the snake before it dropped to ground level and launched itself across the stadium at its little opponent. Squirtle's eyes widened before he found himself wrapped up in the rock snake's coils. Gary grit his teeth slightly, before yelling out. "Squirtle, keep using water gun, weaken it!" Squirtle followed his trainers orders, shooting a water gun at the rock coils surrounding it, making them more malleable. "Squirtle, use rapid spin!" With the coils around him weakened, the water pokemon retreated into his shell and began to spin, faster and faster, bouncing off of the coils around him.

Onix let out a roar of pain as its softened body was hit by the water pokemon's shell, before instinctually pulling away from it. The water pokemon shot out once he wasn't wrapped in the snake's coils, and landed across the field from the snake, before pulling his limbs from his shell.

"Onix, use rock throw!" The massive pokemon slammed its tail into some of the rocks on the field, sending them flying towards Squirtle. "Squirtle, dodge and use water gun!" Squirtle ran forward, narrowly dodging the large rocks that had been thrown at him, before he jumped into the air, shooting a jet of water straight at Onix' face. Gary sighed, why did that pokemon have such a flair for dramatics? Either way, it seemed to have done the trick, and the Onix fell to the ground, defeated.

"And the winner is: Gary Oak of Pallet Town!" The crowd roared loudly in approval.

 **(-o-)**

A few days later, Ash and Mareep were just outside of Dark Cave. The past few days had been fairly uneventful. Ash had yet to run into any trainers, he assumed because most of the ones from New Bark and Cherrygrove had already moved on, and due to how early in the League's new season it was. It was likely that no one had gotten all the badges for this go around yet, so no one was heading towards Kanto. If he'd started a week or so earlier, he probably would have ran into a few trainers around his level, but it just wasn't meant to be, it seems.

Ash had decided to leave actually entering the cave for the next morning, as it was nearing sunset and he didn't want to be in the cave during its darkest hours. Naturally, the two were doing exactly what they'd been doing during all of their breaks in their journey so far, launching thundershocks at various objects in the vicinity. Well, Mareep was doing that at least. Ash himself was setting up camp a short distance away from her. Like most places of interest, Dark Cave had a small campground set up not to far outside it. It was fairly undeveloped compared to most of the others he'd seen thus far, likely due to the lack of traffic in the area, but it had a couple pits to set fires in, and a decent sized pile of wood, so it would more than do the trick.

Honestly, Ash wasn't sure he'd be able to sleep tonight. He had a lot of apprehension and excitement running through him at the same time. Dark Cave, while not terribly dangerous on this side of the cave, did have some pretty dangerous pokemon further into it, and there was always a chance of them wandering further out. On top of that, the pokemon he was after was fairly rare in this part of the cave, so he'd likely have to be in there pretty long.

Either way, he'd likely need as much sleep as he could get for the following day, so once he finished getting the fire set up for warmth, he laid down near it in his sleeping bag and tried his best to fall asleep.

 **A/N: And with that, I think I'm done with this chapter. Let me know how I did, I tried not to rush it too much, but there's really not that much to put in with just Ash and Mareep. Hopefully that'll be made easier with his next pokemon's addition. Speaking of which, feel free to guess what you think it'll be in the comments. The next chapter will probably focus on Dark Cave, and then Route 31 stuff. I might also do some gym preparation.**

 **Edit: Whew, adding the stuff with Gary really extended this one. Over 5.5k words now!**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: After looking at a few maps of Johto during the making of this episode, I noticed a mistake in the amount of time it would likely take to get to Violet City from Cherrygrove. Specifically the time for Route 30 and 31. It has since been fixed.**

 **Reviews Response: Phantomsoul2015, unfortunately I am highly unlikely to take over any other Pokemon projects while this one is being made, in particular one that would take place in Johto. There's just too much chance of my brain getting things mixed up and making mistakes. And to TheBestLikeNoOneEverWas, the chapters should start getting longer as the story goes on. I'm sure you probably noticed that the chapters have been getting a bit longer as the story goes on. It's kinda tough to break the beginning into big pieces without feeling like I'm rushing it. Later on in the story, it'll be a lot easier to write long chapters due to having a larger team, and thus larger pokemon battles. As for your guess on Ash's Dave Cave target, well, you'll see.**

 **And with that out of the way, here's the new chapter.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.**

An Alternate Adventure

Chapter 5

Into the Dark

Ash was awake. This was a rather unusual occurrence, as the sun itself had only just begun to raise. The boy was definitely not what you would call an early bird, unlike his pokemon, Mareep, who was still quite comfortably asleep against his side. In a reversal of normal events, Ash tiredly shook the young pokemon awake, before slowly sitting up and getting out of his sleeping bag. Today, after all, was the big day. Hopefully, at least. If all went well, he would be in and out of the Dark Cave before night fell that evening, with a brand new pokemon caught and ready to train.

Ash didn't expect things to go that well, not really, but who can blame a boy for hoping, right? Ash slowly gathered his belongings and pulled a small breakfast out of his pack for him and Mareep. As he and Mareep ate, he silently dreaded the coming day, he couldn't help but feel that things were going to go wrong. As Ash's thoughts slowly went down a dimmer and dimmer path, Mareep took note of his strange attitude this morning, and meandered on over to him, before lightly butting him in the side with her head.

Ash looked down at the pokemon questioningly, his rather negative thoughts interrupted. "What's up, girl?"

The pokemon butted him in the side again, before prancing off towards the cave, and then coming back. "Ah, right. We should probably just get on with it, huh? No use sitting around feeling bad about things right?" Ash smiled a bit at the friendly pokemon, before slowly getting to his feet and gathering his things.

 **(-o-)**

As Ash slowly stepped into the Dark Cave, he couldn't help but appreciate how aptly named the place was. Even here, in the first part of the place, he could barely see. Sure, he could see the branching tunnels ahead of him, but he imagined once he started heading down them, the light would be rather quickly cut off. Before Ash headed any further into the cave, he paused in that first room, considering his next move.

Ash looked down at Mareep. "I think we should just stick to the leftmost tunnels, that way we don't get lost, okay?" Mareep made a soft baaing sound in return, before walking ahead of Ash towards the tunnel he specified. Ash proceeded to follow.

The light proceeded to rapidly deteriorate as Ash and Mareep walked through the tunnel, making it almost impossible to see. "Mareep, stop for a second." Ash pulled his pack off of his back, and felt around in the small pocket until he found what he was looking for. With a quiet cracking sound, the glow stick he'd taken out lit up. He'd bought the sticks specifically for this expedition, he also had a flashlight of course, but it was more likely to startle the pokemon in the cave, so he was planning to use it in the case of him running out of glow sticks.

Ash tied the stick by its string around one of his belt loops, and motioned for Mareep to continue forward in the dim light cast by the glow stick.

Mareep soon led Ash into a slightly larger area of the cavern. There were many boulders lying about in it, and a few zubat hanging from the ceiling. "Mareep…" The young pokemon looked back at him questioningly. "Don't touch the boulders, I think they're geodude." Mareep nodded at Ash before slowly, quietly leading him through the room. The two soon reached the other side, and like in the previous cavern, took the left path deeper into the caves.

In the next cavern, there was a small stream flowing through it. Ash paused near it, and held his glow stick over it, looking down into it. It was deceptively deep, and he probably wouldn't be able to cross it if he wanted to. He couldn't really tell what kind of pokemon were hiding in it, but it didn't really matter. He didn't come here for a water pokemon. Ash briefly looked across the stream, seeing a tunnel on the other side of the cavern. Unfortunately, there were no paths to take on the side he was on other than the one he'd come through, and he was forced to turn back.

Once the two were back through the tunnel, they carefully crossed the cavern containing the group of, probably, geodude, and headed through the middle tunnel instead. Once through there, they entered another cavern with a stream, likely the same one from the other cavern. Luckily, this particular cavern had a tunnel they could take to the left, and the two headed into it, ignoring the zubats hanging from the ceiling.

The tunnel sloped downward for a few minutes, longer than any of the tunnels they'd traveled through so far. Once out of the tunnel, they entered a small cavern, probably about ten or so yards in diameter, though it wasn't quite circular. There were three separate tunnels exiting the cavern, including the one they'd entered from.

And right there near the middle of the chamber… it was almost too good to be true. There, in the dim light cast by his glowstick, was a pokemon. Specifically, the pokemon he'd come here for. The pokemon, a teddiursa, was kicking a rock around the small cavern, occasionally licking its paws, before looking down at them in slight disappointment. Ash stopped, pulling his pack off of his back and opening the second pocket and looking around in it for something he'd bought specifically for this pokemon.

The teddiursa looked up, having heard Ash rummaging around in his bag. It briefly started to move away, before pausing at a familiar smell. Ash, meanwhile, was grinning as he held the now open jar of honey he'd bought before he headed out of Cherrygrove. It seems the pokedex was right about teddiursas, they really do like honey. Ash set the honey down in front of him, and sat down, waiting.

The teddiursa seemed somewhat wary of him, and slowly edged around him for a bit before it cautiously approached. When it reached him, it immediately snatched the jar off the floor and moved back a short distance. While it had been approaching Ash, of course, Mareep hadn't been idle. She'd gotten on the other side of the teddiursa from Ash, blocking its exit. As the teddiursa cautiously tasted the honey Ash had given it, he quietly called out to it, "Hey, buddy. I've got some more of that if you want it. All you gotta do is join me on my journey."

The teddiursa looked at him like he was stupid. Did he really think it was going to be that easy to win him over?

Ash sighed, "I'll make you stronger? I could train you to be one of those big, strong ursarings…" The teddiursa remained unimpressed, clearly it didn't think he had what it took. "Well… What if we had a battle? I could prove it to you that way?"

The pokemon looked at him consideringly, before nodding at him. Seems he had an agreement. "Alright. Mareep come over here." Mareep cheerfully skipped on over to Ash, seemingly proud of his negotiation skills. The teddiursa didn't seem very impressed by Mareep.

"Alright, Mareep. Start it with a-" The teddiursa apparently decided to take initiative and threw a smooth rock at Mareep, not really doing much of anything, but briefly distracting her nonetheless. "Mareep, dodge and thundershock!" Ash cried out, forgetting his location. Mareep wasn't quite quick enough, and was hit by two fury swipes before she managed to get away. She then proceeded to throw a thundershock at teddiursa, which hit it, causing it to briefly stop before resuming its mad charge at the sheep pokemon.

"Mareep! Tackle attack!" Mareep proceeded to tackle the teddiursa. Now, normally, this wouldn't do much. But with Mareep's thundershock, she'd also accidentally charged up her wool with static electricity, so when she tackled the teddiursa and rolled over it, she also managed to inflict paralysis on it. "Alright, now gain some distance!" Ash yelled out, seeing the teddiursa disoriented. Mareep ran a short distance away before turning to face the small bear pokemon.

The teddiursa attempted to move after Mareep, but its moves were sluggish and it kept freezing up a bit as it moved. Despite this, it was still trying to chase Mareep down, as she was constantly moving away from it. "Mareep, use thundershock again!" This time, Mareep was able to charge up the attack a bit before releasing it, and it hit the opposing pokemon quite a bit harder when it hit. The teddiursa was briefly hidden from view due to the bright flash of electricity, before it came back into view.

Teddiursa looked kind of out of it, certainly not in battling condition. Seeing this, Ash slowly walked over to it, pokeball in hand. When he reached the disoriented pokemon, he crouched down, pressing the pokeball to its head. The teddiursa was absorbed, and after a short moment, the button on the pokeball shined red. "Alright! I caught a new pokemon!" Ash excitedly jumped into the air.

Now, normally, Mareep probably would have joined him. Instead, she was busy staring at one of the tunnels into the cavern they were currently occupying. "Mareep? Are you alrig-..." Ash followed her gaze, and saw something he'd really hoped he wouldn't run into, and the main reason he'd been keeping quiet up until the battle. There, at the edge of one of the tunnels, was an ursaring. Ash immediately pressed the button on Mareep's pokeball, turned, and ran through one of the tunnels.

 **(-o-)**

Gary was... awestruck at his surroundings. Following his battle with Brock, the boy had left Pewter City. He was now standing in the entrance of the cave of Mt. Moon, and he had to say, it lived up to its reputation. Light filtered in through holes in the walls and ceiling, leaving beams of light through the air, the caves almost seeming to... Reflect light? Not completely, but it was certainly interesting to see. No wonder the cave was so well lit. He could see why the clefairy loved this place so much. Speaking of them, maybe he could... Nah, that'd just be too lucky. Gary chuckled as he began to walk through the cave. No way was he going to get that lucky.

As Gary walked through the main cavern, he saw many branching caverns, some of them well treaded, some of them dark and ominous looking. After a short while, Gary decided it would be fun to venture into one of them. He did, after all, pack way more food than he needed, planning to stop and train somewhere for awhile. With this in mind, Gary set out to find the most untraveled tunnel he could, and soon enough, he did just that. The tunnel was dark-looking, and pretty off putting to the average person, as it was really just a hole leading to lower levels of the cave. Gay was anything but the average person, however, and this sent his sense of adventure into overdrive. "Well, here goes nothing."

Gary pulled a rope out of his pack, and tied it to a nearby stalagmite, before testing its strength. Once he was sure it would hold, he dropped the rope into the hole he had found, and climbed down into the tunnel he'd found. Once he reached the bottom, he found he could go one of two ways, as it seemed he had dropped right into the middle of the tunnel he'd found. Gary immediately headed down one of the paths.

 **(-o-)**

As Ash ran, he shoved teddiursa's shrunken pokeball into his pocket. It wasn't until he reached the end of that tunnel that he realized he had gone the wrong way, but at this point, there was no going back. He could still hear the ursaring following him through the tunnels. So he just kept running.

A few tunnels further in, Ash reached a tunnel with piles of large rocks, probably from a previous cave in. Ash climbed up the rocks, found a crevice between them, and dropped in. Once he was in there, he took his glow stick and shoved it inside of his backpack, cutting off the light.

Mere seconds after Ash cut off the light, he could hear an ursaring angrily growling as it angrily went through the cavern. He soon heard it angrily scratching at one of the rocks that was around him. ...How could he forget? Ursarings have very strong senses of smell, it could probably smell him in his hiding place.

For the next several minutes, Ash had a panic attack as the bear tried to figure out how to get to him. He was lucky the thing couldn't see at the moment, he'd accidentally went way too deep into the cave for any light at all to make it through. Without sight, the thing couldn't find the small entrance to the crevice he was hiding in.

After another few minutes of trying to get at the boy, the bear pokemon moved away. Ash remained still for… quite a long time, keeping his breathing as quiet as he could. He couldn't be sure it was gone, after all. After what seemed like, and might have been, hours, Ash slowly shifted, remaining as quiet as he could. He slowly shifted his way out of his hidey hole, and looked around, his head and shoulders out of the crevice.

Naturally, all he saw were various shades of black. Great. Ash pulled his pack off of his back, and reached into the small pocket, pulling a glow stick out. After a quiet 'crack', the cavern was bathed in a dim greenish light. Thankfully, the bear had left, probably a considerable time ago. Less thankfully, Ash had no idea where he was in the caves. He probably wasn't in one of the more dangerous parts of the cave, it took at least half a day to get that deep into the cave.

The real problem with his situation was that he didn't know which way led deeper into the caves, and which way would lead him out. For now, Ash decided, he was just going to get out of this particular cavern, on the off chance the ursaring decided to come back. He climbed the rest of the way out of his hiding place, and carefully climbed the rest of the way down into the rock filled cavern. He examined each of the three tunnels he could leave from, but none of them looked even a bit familiar.

He proceeded to use the tunnel that seemed between the two other two tunnels, quietly moving down it. The next cavern he reached was fairly small, and sloped upwards slightly from his position. There was only one way to continue along this path, and Ash took it, continuing into the tunnel. This process of moving through the tunnels continued for about an hour, before Ash found a small, unoccupied cavern to the side of a tunnel, only about four yards across. Ash sat down, and released Mareep from her pokeball.

 **(-o-)**

Gary was... awestruck at what he'd found. Far, far more than he had been just entering the caves. In front of him, dancing around a massive, glittering stone, was a mass of clefairy. He could only imagine what this could be for. Gary pulled out his pokedex, using one of its many functions to take pictures of the event in front of him, before he sat down to watch the rest of their dance.

A short while later, some of the clefairy began to glow brightly. Gary's eyes widened, was this really happening? As the glow of the clefairy increased in intensity, Gary realized what he had found. The legendary Moon Stone, right before him... Soon enough, the clefairy's glow dissipated, and now there were some clefable in their midst.

With their ritual complete, the clefairy and clefable began to disperse. Soon enough, there was only one of them left. The clefairy seemed disappointed, sitting before the massive stone.

Gary rose to his feet. Perhaps he could add this pokemon to his team? Gary reached towards his belt as he walked out into the chamber, before pulling his hand away, deciding against battling the pokemon for now. Hearing footsteps, the pokemon turned to face him in surprise, eyes wide. Seeing him in the chamber of the Moon Stone, the clefairy looked between him and the Moon Stone a few times before taking a defensive position, clearly wanting to protect the legendary artifact. "Whoa, whoa. I'm not here for the stone."

The clefairy didn't shift its posture, clearly waiting for him to make even one hostile move. "Look, I won't even tell anyone I know where it is!" The clefairy seemed pretty unimpressed.

"Uhh..." Gary shifted slightly, trying to think of a way to turn this to my advantage. "Of course, you have no way of making sure of that, huh? ...What if you went with me? I could even help you get stronger." The clefairy looked at him consideringly. Clefairy generally didn't leave the caves, at least until they became clefable... Perhaps this trainer could help her, though. She was having some problems getting strong enough, after all, and she really wanted to see the world, unlike most of her kind. After a short internal debate, Clefairy gave Gary a firm nod. She would go with him, and make sure he didn't tell anyone about the Moon Stone.

With a grin, Gary pulled out a pokeball and captured one of the rarest pokemon in Kanto.

 **(-o-)**

The pokemon, understandably upset from what had happened just before she'd been recalled, immediately jumped into Ash's lap, curling up against him. The pokemon seemed quite relieved to see him, and he was equally relieved to see her, as it meant he'd made it to… relative safety. Ash patted the young pokemon on the head comfortingly. "We made it away from that ursaring… I don't know where we are anymore, though. For now, let's just eat some… is it lunchtime? We'll call it lunch."

With that, Ash pulled his pack off his shoulders and opened it up, pulling a couple small packets of pokemon food, as well as a wrapped up sandwich and a small yellowish spray bottle. He opened up one of the packets and prepared it for Mareep, before taking the pokeball from his pocket and releasing the teddiursa within. The pokemon, still paralyzed from its encounter with Mareep, looked up at Ash in mild annoyance, clearly not to happy about its loss. Ash sighed and sprayed the pokemon with the yellow spray.

Within a few seconds, the pokemon regained most of the movement it had lost and sat up, though it still looked kind of annoyed at Ash. Ash picked the pokemon food packet he'd taken out for his newest pokemon, and opened it up, presenting it to teddiursa. The pokemon turned up its nose at him, clearly unimpressed at his food. Ash sighed. "I know it's not much, but right now it's all I can give you…"

The teddiursa made an angry growling noise, but snatched the food away from him anyways, before beginning to eat.

Ash turned away from the pokemon, grabbing his sandwich from where he'd put it. It was pretty plain, just a ham and cheese sandwich. He'd grabbed about five of them from a store before he'd left Cherrygrove, just in case he needed food and couldn't cook. As he and his pokemon ate in the small cavern he'd found, he found himself racking his mind for solutions to his current problem.

He couldn't just keep wandering around in here, with his luck he'd just end up wandering into the worse parts of the cave system. He didn't really see any other way to deal with it though, Mareep wasn't made for navig-... Ash's eyes drifted over to teddiursa. The pokemon species was known for its strong nose, as well as the sheer strength it was capable of. If any pokemon could get him out of his current situation, it was that one.

The question was, of course, would it? There was no question as to whether it would be able to, it definitely would. The problem was that he had only just captured the pokemon, he'd put no time into training it, and there was a good chance it could be… disobedient. There was no telling whether it would take him to safety or his doom. If he had some way to ensure its… "Teddiursa?"

The pokemon looked up from its half eaten food, a slightly annoyed look on its face. "Do you think you could help me get out of here? I kinda got lost after I caught you…" Ash sheepishly rubbed the back of his head.

Teddiursa looked at him consideringly, before returning to its food. "If you get us out of here, I'll give you some more honey…" Ash grinned as the pokemon's eyes snapped to him. It narrowed its eyes, before reluctantly giving him a nod and returning to its food. With that accomplished, Ash returned to his sandwich. How could Ash have forgotten the substance he'd gotten specifically for the little bear pokemon? If there was anything that could convince the creature, it would be that.

A short time later, the trio were all finished with their food and prepared to resume their expedition. Teddiursa briefly sniffed the air, before turning and walking in the direction Ash had come in. Ash and Mareep followed, keeping an eye out for any other pokemon. Teddiursa soon came to a fork in the cave system, and once again briefly sniffed the air before taking the tunnel on the right. This process continued for around twenty minutes, taking tunnels Ash had yet to see before now, until there was a dimly visible light visible not too far ahead.

Just a minute later, Ash was stepping out of the cave system into a small clearing. Ash took a brief look around, taking in his surroundings. In front of him was dense, packed forest, while behind him was a steep mountain. Over the forest, the sun hung low overhead, within a couple hours of sunset. Based on what he could tell, he was probably somewhere within half a day's travel north or south of the entrance he'd taken to enter the caves.

Ash had multiple options. He could follow the mountainside either north or south, most likely south to be safe, in an attempt to find the entrance he'd entered the caves from, or he could head west into the forest, taking a more direct route to whatever city or route was currently west of him. Regardless of what he chose, it would have to be a decision for tomorrow, right now it was time to set up camp for the night.

While Ash was setting up camp, a short distance away his two pokemon were having a staredown. Teddiursa had just caught Mareep looking at it, and had proceeded to begin this… competition? Mareep herself, the playful pokemon she was, was taking it as one at least. After a short amount of time, around the same time Ash had finished setting up camp, Teddiursa huffed and turned away, facing the forest. Mareep proceeded to bounce happily on over to Ash, who looked over at her somewhat tiredly. Apparently he hadn't recovered from his time in the caves quite yet, unlike her. He smiled at her anyways, before shaking his head and sitting down, beginning to pull some food out of his bag.

Ash placed a small package of pokemon food in front of each of his pokemon. "Alright guys, eat up. We got a long day tomorrow." Mareep, of course, proceeded to begin eating her food as expected. Teddiursa on the other hand, looked up at Ash expectantly, not even bothering to touch its own food.

Ash frowned, looking down at the pokemon. "Is something wrong?" The teddiursa intensified its look, before pointing at the cave and looking back at Ash. Ash looked between the cave and the pokemon a few times in confusion, before it slowly dawned on him what the pokemon before him wanted. "Ooh… Give me a second." Ash turned back to his back, rifling through it briefly before he pulled out what he thought the pokemon was asking for. A small jar of honey.

Ash opened it up and set it in front of the teddiursa, who immediately snatched it up and began scooping it out greedily, it hadn't really gotten any of the honey Ash had offered it previously, and it had quite an obsession with the stuff. Probably even more so than most of its species. Ash watched the pokemon scarfing down the honey, slightly impressed. "Well, make sure to eat the rest of your food too, I don't think that'll provide too much energy…"

With his pokemon feeding finally done, Ash turned back to his pack and proceeded to begin feeding himself. Within short order, Ash and his pokemon were fed, Teddiursa was back in his pokeball, and Ash and Mareep were fast asleep under the stars.

 **A/N: Originally, I was going to continue the chapter after this point, but I think I'm going to end it here. It feels pretty decently wrapped up, leaves a nice starting point for the next chapter. Anyways, should probably get to the actual point of this A/N. I want a few people or so who want to proofread this stuff for me. If you're interested, please send me your gmail. All I want is for you to read through it before I post the chapter, and then leave comments on the document in places you think could use some improvements. The perks of this, of course, are that you can read the chapters before they come out, for both this story and the side story, Gary Tales. Anyways, thanks for reading, feel free to comment and let me know about anything I can improve.**

 **Edit: I now have a discord server for this profile, so if you want to proofread, the links are in there.**


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: I recently went through my chapters, and more or less spliced the side story, Gary Tales, into this one. I think I made it work, but I'd really like some feedback on that. Also, Review Responses are now at the bottom of the chapter from now on. Its length got a bit out of hand. And one final note, sorry this one took so long, I had to go to the DMV a couple times and had a birthday in there.

As a side note, this chapter was pretty back and forth. This was mostly due to it being written in many, many separate instances. I kept getting interrupted and was just overall busy. I've done what I can to fix it on short notice, but it'll need some more work in the near future. Future chapters won't be as back and forth, I promise.

Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.

An Alternate Adventure

Chapter 6

Lost and Found Again

There was a strange scuttling sound, and then the sound of… electricity? Ash sat up and looked around, wide-eyed. A short distance away, Mareep was standing in an aggressive position, facing the forest. Near her, Ash's pack lay, a few rips on its surface. Ash took another look around, before getting out of his sleeping bag and walking over to the pack, picking it up. It was still in usable condition, luckily. The rips weren't serious. It seems there are some scavengers in the forest, he would have to be careful about that in the future.

Ash slung the pack onto his back, and knelt down next to Mareep, who was still standing alert. Ash smiled at the pokemon and patted her on the head. "Good job, Mareep. Thanks for protecting our stuff."

The young pokemon beamed up at him and more or less bounced around him as he got to his feet and turned towards the forest. He'd decided the previous night that he should head through it. There was really no point in backtracking, it would carry similar danger whether he charged forward or went back. With this in mind, Ash stepped into the forest, Mareep following behind him.

The forest that extended from the edge of the mountains was fairly thick, and with that came a heavily shaded forest. It wasn't too bad at the moment, but Ash could tell it would likely be dark as pitch when night fell. He would probably find a decent clearing before then, however, so it likely wouldn't matter too much.

Mareep, as was her usual behavior, was running around to various plants and rocks as she followed Ash through the forest, occasionally running ahead, occasionally falling behind. She had good ears, so Ash wasn't really worried about her losing him. It was lucky she didn't have hands, otherwise Ash was sure she'd be bringing him countless random things from the forest floor… He was both anticipating and dreading her evolution to flaaffy. She wouldn't quite have hands, but she'd be able to pick things up, and that would no doubt lead to some type of shenanigans.

Ash's thoughts drifted as he continued walking. This area wasn't particularly well wandered, and thus wasn't very documented. He couldn't help but wonder what kind of pokemon lived there. Would he find one of the pokemon he wanted to catch earlier than expected? He hoped so, there was really no telling though.

It was a few more hours of wandering west before Ash stumbled upon his first clearing. It was a decent sized clearing, around thirty yards across or so, maybe more. There was some long grass in the clearing, and a small shaded area with much shorter grass. Overall, it was probably the best Ash would find today. Ash pulled out his pokedex and checked the time. 12:17. That was good enough, half a day of walking everyday would get him out well before he ran out of food.

Ash released Teddiursa, briefly asking his two pokemon to get some training in before he set about setting up camp for the night.

(-o-)

Gary was honestly really impressed with his newest pokemon. Clefairy was stronger than any one of his other three pokemon. Two on one, they easily manhandled her of course, but in a one on one battle? Clefairy would beat any of them. This was only made more impressive by her own weakness to poison type moves, which he'd recently been focusing on with the little nidoran.

For the past day or two, Gary had been camped out in one of the chambers opposite of the way he'd gone to run into the Moon Stone. All he'd been doing since then was having his pokemon train together. Squirtle was pretty put out about his newest team member, it seems. He was used to being the strongest on the team, and having that change so suddenly really didn't sit well with the turtle.

Nidoran seemed to love his newest training partner. The two got along far better than any of the other members of the team. Maybe it had something to do with their shared connection to the Moon Stone? It was something to look into, at the least.

Spearow was being fairly standoffish, as per his usual behavior. He didn't really seem to dislike any of the other members of the team, but prefered to simply perch by himself when he wasn't training.

Gary was pretty happy with his team dynamic as it was. Of course, that didn't stop him from planning out a few more team members. He had quite the variety to choose from, after all. Kanto had one of the largest selections of powerful pokemon in the world, and it was very difficult to choose just a handful.

With that in mind, Gary decided it was finally time to leave the caves. He returned his pokemon, and headed towards the rope he'd set up to get into the cave he was in.

(-o-)

Gary… wasn't really ready for any of the gyms in the area. Sure, he could go ahead and try to take them on anyways, and he might win, too. It would probably end with his pokemon hurt pretty bad if he did, though, and he really didn't feel like taking the risk. With that in mind, Gary had left Cerulean City almost as soon as he'd arrived there, heading north on Route 24 with the plan to train for his future gym battles.

On his way up the Route, he'd encountered a lone charmander, sitting on a rocky outcropping. He'd tried to catch the pokemon, but pokeballs didn't work on it, showing that it was an already captured pokemon. With this in mind, he'd left the pokemon, assuming its trainer would be back for it soon.

An hour or so later, Gary had arrived at the pokemon center between Route 24 and Route 25. He'd done his usual routine, a quick checkup on his pokemon from the nurse, a quick call updating his Grandpa, and then he'd rented a room and headed up there to sleep for the night.

A crack of thunder had woken him up sometime during the night, and after a bit of tossing and turning, he'd headed downstairs to sit in the center's lounge for awhile.

And that was how he'd gotten into his current situation. "Yo! I thought you had a charmander too?" A slightly annoying voice could be heard from Gary's seat at the table. An accented voice responded. "Yeah… I had one, but that puny little thing was so weak, it couldn't even beat the weakest opponents." Gary shifted his gaze to the speaker. Damien… Gary's grandpa had given Damien that pokemon.

"So what'd you do with the charmander?" Another voice chimed in. Damien's response couldn't have been worse. "Eh, I left it on some rock in the woods. That thing is so stupid! No matter what I do to it it keeps on following me, I finally got rid of it by promising I'd come back for it! It fell for it. It's probably still there waitin' for me." Damien and his friends all began to laugh… for some reason. Gary couldn't see what was so funny about pokemon abuse, but now really wasn't the time to wonder about that.

Gary rose to his feet, and walked over to the group of idiots. "Hey, Damien." Damien looked up and saw Gary. "Oh, hey Gary." Gary gave Damien a friendly smile. "So, I heard what you did to that charmander of yours…" Damien grinned back at him. "Yeah! Funny isn't it?" Gary's smile dropped. "No, not really. You know what will be funny though?"

"What's that, rich boy?" Damien seemed a little bit angry at his tone.

Gary's smile returned to his face, though it was much darker than the previous one. "You, in prison for pokemon abuse if you don't hand over that charmander's pokeball to me." This was an exaggeration and a bluff of course, the penalty for pokemon abuse was lower than that, just a fine. It really should have been higher though, and it showed by Damien's response. "O-Okay! Here, take it!" Damien threw the pokeball at him, and Gary caught it before smirking at the other boy. "Pleasure doing business with you."

With that, Gary turned and ran out of the pokemon center, heading back towards where he'd seen the charmander before. Gary grit his teeth as he ran through the rain, getting soaked to the bone almost immediately. This was not how he'd planned his night to go…

Several more minutes of running through the rain later, and Gary could see the charmander's tail flickering a short distance away. Good, it was still alive then. As soon as he was within recall distance, he depressed the button on the charmander's pokeball, returning it. With that accomplished, Gary turned and ran back towards the pokemon center he'd been resting in.

A short few minutes later, Gary was back inside the pokemon center, soaked to the bone with his clothes sticking to his body. Ignoring his own discomfort for the moment, he walked up to Nurse Joy. "Nurse Joy, I have a charmander in need of medical assistance. It was abandoned in the rain and needs help." Gary set Charmander's pokeball on the counter. "I trust you to take care of it." The nurse nodded at him. "Understood." With that, Gary turned and headed up to his room for a warm bath and a change of clothes before bed.

(-o-)

The following morning, Gary headed back downstairs and walked up to Nurse Joy. "Hey. Is that charmander I brought you alright?" The woman gave him a cautious look. "Was that… your charmander?"

Gary gave her a slightly annoyed look, like he'd be caught dead abusing his pokemon. "Not until I found it in the rain, no. It was abandoned by a trainer named Damien. I would, however, like to take it in." The nurse gave him a slightly unsure look. "Are you sure? He was in pretty bad condition, might need to stay for awhile…" Nurse Joy was clearly trying to discourage him. Gary could understand of course, not like she could be sure of his story after all.

Gary shrugged. "That's fine. I need to get some training in for awhile anyways, I can wait." The woman let out a sigh, before seeming to debate what she should answer him with. "...I'm really sorry, but I can't just give an abused charmander to any random trainer. I'll be calling someone from the league, and it'll be delivered to Professor Oak, most likely."

Gary gave an understanding, but still somewhat annoyed nod to the woman. "Alright. I'll let gramps know he's got a charmander on the way. He was still off in Johto last I checked." The woman seemed kind of shocked, perhaps this was a different Joy from the one he'd checked in with? Perhaps a morning shift to her night shift? "Ohh… Oh! You're Professor Oak's grandson, Gary Oak?" Gary gave an affirmative nod. The woman smiled at him, clearly relieved. "Oh, thank goodness. I was worried you might be the persistent type. If you could show me your identification, Charmander will be ready to go with you tomorrow!" It was a wonder what being descended from famous trainers could do for you.

Gary pulled his pokedex out for the woman and showed her his id, another of the machine's many uses. "Alright, come back tomorrow and Charmander will be ready to go!" Gary gave her a nod before heading out for the day to train.

(-o-)

Ash had been in this forest for nine. Days. Where was he? How did he get this lost? His mom was gonna be so mad, he'd told her he'd call back in a week or less. At least the forest wasn't too dangerous. He'd even got in some good training, too. Mareep and Teddiursa were getting along way better than he'd expected with their… rocky start. Around the third day of wandering, the pokemon had finally warmed up to her, at least. Still acted all standoffish to him though.

He'd also managed to discover the pokemon's gender when he'd used his pokedex on it. Apparently it had that feature. It also registered what moves the pokemon knew, among other things. Who knew, right?

Currently, the little bear pokemon was riding on Mareep's back like she was some kind of horse as they walked through the forest. He'd tried to remove him earlier, but it had just ended in Teddiursa hopping back on. Mareep didn't seem to mind, though, so Ash was content to just let it happen for now.

"Oh look, another clearing, we can stop for the day again…" Ash let out, seeing a break in the trees ahead. When he walked out into the 'clearing', however, he saw that it was most definitely not a clearing. It was, finally, a route. With an excited jump, Ash yelled out. "Yes! I made it!"

Mareep, naturally, shared in Ash's excited leap into the air and subsequently sent Teddiursa flying to the ground. The little bear pokemon sat up and looked up at Ash, who seemed pretty amused by the event, before turning away and walking to stand by Mareep.

"Well, no idea which route we're on…" Ash looked to the left, and then to the right, seeing no signs within viewing distance. "Well, I guess it doesn't really matter which way we go, huh?" Ash turned to the right and set off down the route, his pokemon following behind him.

An hour later, Ash had figured out where he was… In front of him was a sign reading "Route 37, North: Ecruteak City, South: Goldenrod City, Violet City." Naturally, Ash had been heading towards Ecruteak City. The question was, was it worth it to turn around and head back to Violet City, or would it be better to just continue onward for now? With this question in mind, Ash settled down at the nearby campsite, absently directing his two pokemon to begin training before he pulled his pokedex out and began searching through his information on the two directions he could take.

After a short time, he heard his pokemon getting a bit rowdy, and he looked up, ready to tell them to take it easy… Instead, he jumped into a ready position, his pokemon had found just what he wanted. There, having a playful mock battle with Teddiursa, who was not fighting very playfully in return, was a growlithe. How he hadn't heard the pokemon coming, he had no idea, but it was just what he needed. "Mareep, use thunder wave!" Mareep briefly glanced at him in surprise before complying with his order, throwing the paralyzing attack at the two fighting pokemon.

Teddiursa, used to the attack, immediately rolled to the side. Growlithe on the other hand, was hit directly, and came out of the attack pretty stunned. The little dog pokemon looked between Teddiursa and Mareep a few times, before charging in a slightly jerky run at Mareep. "Mareep, thundershock." Mareep responded near instantly, having grown much more skilled since her last real battle, and launched a thundershock at the charging growlithe.

The growlithe made a clear move to dodge to the left, but the jerkiness of its movements betrayed it, and it fell on its side and was smacked with the thundershock. After it was hit, it simply laid there, all tuckered out. "Good job Mareep, I think I can take this from here…"

Ash walked over to the defeated pokemon, crouching down next to them. "Hey there buddy, I'm gonna catch you now okay?" Ash looked deep into the growlithe's eyes, and waited for a response. The pokemon stared back for a short time, almost seeming to judge him, before giving him a nod. Ash grinned back at the dog and pulled out a pokeball, tapping it on the head. Growlithe was sucked into the ball, and Ash jumped into the air. "I did it! I caught a Growlithe!"

Ash gave Mareep a happy hug. "You hear that, girl? We're halfway to a full team now, isn't that great?" Mareep responded with a happy cooing noise, and nuzzled into his shoulder.

(-o-)

While Ash had been wandering in the woods, Gary had headed back down through Cerulean City, and was now headed south on Route 5. He had, of course, made good use of the time. Charmander had taken a little while to warm up to the rest of his pokemon, but he was doing much better now. He still seemed pretty shy, probably due to his previous trainer's abuse. Hopefully that would go away eventually.

Gary had multiple reasons for going down the route he was on now. The first, of course, was that he was heading to Celadon City. The gym there was a grass type gym, and with his team's current setup, that would likely be the easiest gym for him to take on at the moment. The second reason was that both of the routes he would take to get there contained abra, the pokemon he wanted to complete his team with. He would prefer a kadabra of course, but they were rarer and harder to deal with.

The main problem with abra wasn't that it was rare, it was that it would teleport away if it noticed you. Gary had already had two escape from his pokeball on his way through the route. It was starting to get annoying.

Another annoying thing was all the trainers he'd been running into. Why would he want to battle with them? Not like it made his pokemon any stronger than just training on his own would. Maybe he'd be more interested when his pokemon gained more strength, but for now it just wasn't going to happen.

(-o-)

Ash, meanwhile, was having similar problems. The difference was: Ash was bad at saying no. So far, he'd lost twice and won once. The trainers he was facing had just been on the road longer than him, from what he could tell, so he wasn't too disappointed. One of them had even had three badges! The one he beat only had one, and that gave him a lot of confidence in his chances.

It had also made him reevaluate his planned route. Going to Violet City first wouldn't really make sense in this case, because Mareep was already way too strong for that gym. He'd decided to head to Goldenrod City first, and that was the path he was now headed down. As a side bonus, there was a really nice shopping center in Goldenrod, and he was pretty sure he could get a fire stone for Growlithe to use later on.

With that in mind, Ash was currently walking into Goldenrod City. It had taken just under a week to get there from his position on Route 37, and he'd come very close to running out of food. Teddiursa in particular was very moody about this, the little pokemon hadn't had any honey in days. Also, Teddiursa had been banged up a bit in a couple of those battles, which it wasn't happy about.

It was also why Ash was currently booking it towards the nearest pokemon center. His pokemon were pretty banged up. Nothing too serious, of course, but they'd taken some hits and it was always best to make sure. Ash charged through the pokemon center doors, and ran up to Nurse Joy. "Nurse Joy!" The woman jumped a bit, before immediately shifting to a worried stance. "Are you okay? Is something wrong?"

"Oh, uhh… I just wanted to get my pokemon checked on, we had a few battles on our way here…" Ash rubbed the back of his head, he hadn't meant to spook the nurse. Nurse Joy gave the boy a slightly annoyed look. "Okay… Give me your pokemon, I'll get them checked on.

Ash handed the woman three pokeballs. "While you're waiting, feel free to have some lunch. It's free for all the new trainers, and the returning ones." She gestured over to a buffet style setup off to the side of the center. "Okay Nurse Joy!" With that, the boy ran off towards the food and began to devour it with gusto, much less well mannered than he'd been in the forest… Which is the opposite of what it should have been, but that was the way it went for him.

(-o-)

Gary was walking into Celadon City, a small, yellow, catlike pokemon floating along behind him. The pokemon was an odd one, after he'd caught it it almost immediately accepted its place on his team, but it sometimes refused to stay in its pokeball. Gary was perfectly fine with this, floating around like it was would train its psychic abilities. Normally, it wouldn't do too much, but Abra was a pretty young member of its species, and was still developing even its basic abilities.

Gary was pretty proud of how well the rest of his team was developing. Clefairy was still probably the strongest member of the team, but Squirtle was catching up, and won some of their little battles now, as opposed to his previous record of making the stronger pokemon tired. Charmander, meanwhile, was much more used to his team now. He didn't enjoy the presence of unfamiliar humans, though, and tended to stay in his pokeball around them. Due to this, Gary had decided he needed to speak to the gym leader prior to their actual battle. He was confident he could take on the gym leader without charmander, of course, but he really wanted to get the little lizard some experience.

Spearow was… Well, he didn't seem to be taking too well to his current position near the bottom of the team's power totem. In fact, only Charmander and Abra weren't as strong as him now. Nidoran had since outstripped the small bird, and it was likely he would evolve soon. Spearow was pretty moody at the moment, but hopefully Gary would be able to solve that problem…

Shaking his head to clear the thoughts of his team, Gary stepped into the pokemon gym. It smelled… pretty bad in there. It was a perfume scent, but it was much too strong for his tastes. The gym was filled to the brim with greenery, and near the middle was a young woman watering some flowers. Gary approached her. "Hey, can you direct me to the gym leader?" The young woman, probably around eighteen or nineteen, didn't even look up at him. "You're speaking to her."

Gary was, just as with the previous gym leader, pretty impressed. He'd already known that the Celadon City gym leader was pretty young, but that didn't make it any less impressive. "I wanted to request something of you." The woman nodded, shifting her watering can to some more flowers. "Go ahead."

"I'm going to challenge you tomorrow, I wanted to request that the match be barred from viewing in person." The woman paused, before standing up and looking at him seriously. "And why, may I ask, do you want that?"

Gary stared back, not backing down in the slightest. "One of my pokemon is rather nervous around strangers, and I want to get him some experience. My… reputation would lead to quite the audience."

The woman looked him up and down a few times, before seeming to come to a realization. "Ah, Gary Oak. Your father defeated my mother in this very gym, did you know that?" Gary raised his eyebrows. "I hadn't been aware, no. I did know he defeated all of Kantos gyms, however."

The woman, Erika, nodded. "Yes, I can imagine you didn't look to deeply into my history. I will grant your request. How many badges do you have, Gary Oak?"

"I have one."

Erika turned back to her flowers. "Then the two badge team it is. A shame, I was hoping to have a more interesting battle than usual."

Gary turned and left the gym, before heading to the pokemon center to rest for the night.

A bit shorter than I wanted, but it'll do for this chapter. Next chapter, Ash will take on his first gym leader, while Gary takes on his second. That'll be fun to write, especially since I'll have to make up a first badge team for Whitney and a second badge team for Erika. Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed, on to the reviews.

Review Responses: I want to give a special thanks to the anonymous reviewer that goes by the name Eevee in the comments. Your reviews were very thoughtful, and even helped me correct an error in one of my chapters! You even managed to guess the pokemon I had Ash hunt down correctly! On another note, your reviews also had rather good grammar and such, so I want to invite you specifically to be a proofreader for me.

If you could PM me your gmail, whether it's your actual gmail or just one you made for this, I would appreciate it. If not, that's fine too, just figured I'd give your reviews the attention I think they deserve.

As for anyone else who wants to proofread for me, all you need to do is pm me your gmail, and I'll see about getting you added to the docs.

And to Matt Z, thank you for your feedback. Currently, I'm going for around 5-6k chapters, though some of them will likely be longer than that going forward. It'll also likely be updated more often than those other two are. (By the way, Traveler is one of my personal favorite stories, not just for Pokemon, but overall) As for the title, I kinda thought so too, but I'm really not sure what else to put. Maybe I'll think of something later.

And to everyone else who is enjoying the story, thank you. It'd be pretty pointless to make without you.

I have since made a discord for this profile, feel free to join it. The link is on my profile.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: I hope you guys are ready for this super early chapter, cause I know I am.**

 **I do not own Pokemon**

 **An Alternate Adventure**

 **Chapter Seven**

 **Concrete Jungles and Human Zoos**

Gary, once again, was walking through Celadon City. Today was the day he would challenge the place's gym, but he couldn't help but examine the place as he walked through. Tall buildings rose high into the sky, some lit up still, even during the day. Workplaces, shopping centers, casinos, if you wanted it, Celadon probably had it. It was all quite a lot to take in. Gary, for one, didn't care for it. The place was just not free enough for him, too many people, not enough… Everything else.

It wasn't all bad, of course. People wouldn't live like this if it were. It just wasn't the life for someone like him. He couldn't live in a place without the sound of the pokemon, were you had to walk half a day just to leave it. He wasn't surprised that his grandfather had stayed in Pallet, after seeing all this.

Pallet Town wasn't small by coincidence, either. Professor Oak, with his connections, had managed to get the whole place labelled a wildlife preserve. You couldn't build on any land that wasn't a natural clearing, and it was a challenge to get even the supplies necessary to build even a house there, much less the towering pillars of buildings that currently surrounded Gary. If you didn't live there, chances were you weren't going to.

Gary, for one, was happy his grandfather had gone to such measures for his privacy. He couldn't imagine what his life would have been like, growing up surrounded by the city that no doubt would have sprung up with Professor Oak's presence and the advantageous location by the sea.

That aside, though, Gary was approaching the gym. It had taken no less than fifteen minutes to walk from the pokemon center to the gym, which, considering the two places' purpose, was pretty maddening. It shouldn't have taken any longer than a couple minutes, but perhaps there was a reason the distance was allowed by the places gym leader? She certainly seemed a gentle type, taking care of her flowers like that.

Gary walked up to the door of the gym and scanned his ID from his pokedex to the gym's security system. The door opened in front of him, and he headed in. Most of the gyms in Kanto had similar systems, as they served multiple purposes. The first, and most well known, was to test new trainers and ensure that they were ready for the Indigo League Tournament. The others, much less well known, included aiding in the defense of the city in case of an emergency, serving as an evacuation point, and serving as a sort of… preserve for pokemon of their type or similar types. Generally the pokemon adopted by a gym were there because of poachers, or some similarly tragic event.

This was also the reason that most gyms were considerably larger than they needed to be. If they were just for challenging new trainers, they could just be a stadium. In most gyms, there was a stadium, as well as several levels or a sprawling indoor area to contain their many pokemon. They also generally had some sort of underground complex, to evacuate people into in case of emergency.

It hadn't always been this way, of course. Before Gary was born, many gyms were in fact just a small stadium, with maybe an entry area and seating. Things had changed immensely after the Great War had ended. The knowledge of the bunkers, of course, wasn't freely available to the public. Gary himself only knew because he'd talked with his grandfather about the gyms.

Gary walked into the main area of the massive gym, perhaps one of the largest in Kanto. The place spanned hundreds of yards in every direction, and was basically a forest in a building. If it weren't for the doors that kept out anyone that wasn't a registered challenger or member of the Indigo pokemon league, it would likely have been filled to the brim with sightseers.

Really, the security system was quite lucky for Gary, it made his request that much easier for the gym leader he was now approaching. Generally, when a challenger was scheduled to battle the gym leader, the doors would be opened and anyone who wanted could enter, with a fee of course. The fees helped fund the gym itself, along with the money the league sent to them. It was likely only due to his family's contributions to the league that had allowed Erika to grant him his private battle. It would, of course, still be aired on one of the city's tv networks, but that wasn't really an issue in this case.

Gary approached the gym leader. "Erika?" The woman looked up at him. "Oh? Calling me by name now, eh?"

"Well, what else would you like me to call you then? Perhaps Ma'am?" Gary smirked cockily at the gym leader. She waved him off. "No, no. Go ahead and continue to use my name. I really don't mind. You're here for your battle then?"

"Yes. Where is the stadium, by the way? I haven't seen one…" The woman turned and walked off, waving her hand as a signal for him to come with. "Follow me, it's over here."

A short walk later and the two were standing in a large clearing in the indoor forest. "Normally, stands would come out of the ground. Clearly, that will be unnecessary, due to your request. The battle will be two on two. I'm sure you know the battle rules the gym uses."

Gary gave her a nod, and she continued. "Since you told me of your pokemon's… nervousness, there will be no in-house announcer. The only announcer will be for the televised version, which will air live as we battle. Are you ready to begin?"

"Yes" Gary gave a nod. "Then go to your own side of the clearing, and we will begin." With that, Erika began to gracefully walk to the other side of the clearing. Gary turned and followed her example, stopping near the edge of the clearing, before turning to face Erika, who was facing him with a pokeball in her hand. Gary pulled his own pokeball out, and Erika rose her hand into the air, three fingers raised. They began to count down. "Three, two, one!" Both trainers released their pokemon into the middle of the clearing.

Gary had, of course, started with Charmander. Across from the small fire pokemon was Erika's choice of pokemon… A bulbasaur. It made sense, most trainers facing her first or second wouldn't be coming from Pallet Town, where Professor Oak kept his preserve of the starters he gave out. It was actually one of the few places that the pokemon still lived, despite the species' power in its later evolutions. There were a few places they still lived north of the Silverpeak Mountains, but that area was largely unexplored due to the dangerous wild pokemon that lived there, as well as the dense jungle and forest that sprawled across the area.

"Bulbasaur, use stun spore." With that, Gary's attention snapped back to the battle as the small plant pokemon released a cloud of spores from its back. Gary briefly considered his options, before realizing the opportunity the gym leader had, likely purposely, given him. "Charmander, use ember on the spores!" Charmander gave an affirmative nod and began launching small fires into the spores, igniting the highly flammable spores and roasting Bulbasaur and briefly filling the air with smoke.

When the air cleared, the grass pokemon was unconscious from the damage it had taken, and Erika recalled it with a respectful nod towards Gary. That had been a test then, to see if he really understood her type's weaknesses. She then released her second pokemon, a Tangela. Gary only knew the relatively rare species due to its native location southeast of Pallet Town. It wasn't really the strongest pick for a gym leader, but it certainly seemed prepared. The tentacle pokemon was calmly standing there, its tentacles slowly shifting as it waited for direction from its trainer. "Tangela, charge it and hit it with vine whip."

And with that, the tentacle blob launched itself across the field in seconds, moving at speeds it shouldn't have been able to with its little feet and throwing its tentacle vines at Charmander. With no time to respond, Charmander was smacked clear of his feet and sent rolling. "Charmander! Recover and hit it with metal claw when it charges you!" Erika, meanwhile, wasn't idle. "Tangela! Get in there and get it with bind!"

Charmander took a few short seconds to recover, and in that short time, Tangela was already on him, its tentacles wrapping around him. He tried to slash at them, but only managed to lop a few off before his arms were wrapped up. "Tangela! Sleep powder and absorb!" With that order, Tangela simultaneously released powder and sucked energy from Charmander, both lulling him to sleep and draining him of his energy.

Gary… Was not ready for that particular strategy. He sighed and waited a few seconds to see if Charmander would wake up, before recalling the small lizard. He looked up at Erika with even more respect than before, before reaching to his belt and pulling out another pokeball. He'd considered using spearow for this battle, but it really wasn't on the poor bird's level anymore. With that in mind, Gary released his next pokemon, Nidoran.

Nidoran had grown considerably since he'd captured the pokemon on Route 22. His legs were more muscular, his body had grown larger in general, the poisonous spines on its body had grown sharper. Over all, he'd grown an amazing amount for just a month's worth of training. He also happened to be the perfect choice for Gary's current opponent, and it showed on Erika's surprised face. "Nidoran! Get in there and hit it with poison sting!"

Nidoran gave a firm nod before he ran towards the grass pokemon. "Tangela! Keep your distance and use growth!" The tentacle pokemon, faster than Nidoran, kept a good distance away while also slowly gaining size. Of course, growing in size also slowed the pokemon down, and once it reached a certain size, Nidoran caught up and launched himself into it horn first, horn dripping with poison. "Tangela! Bind, sleep powder and absorb!" Of course, with Nidoran so close, he was easy to wrap in its vines, the tangela did seem pretty wounded though. "Nidoran! Use your back spikes before you fall asleep!" Nidoran pushed its back spikes out as the tentacle pokemon tightly gripped it, sending even more poison into the grass pokemon's system.

Nidoran, still in the tangela's hold, continued to struggle against the combined forces being used against it, while tangela maintained its hold, the poison not quite enough to slow the powerful pokemon down. Gary sighed, and pulled Nidoran's pokeball off of his belt, ready to try again later.

A glow began to shine from between Tangela's tentacles, slowly growing brighter and brighter. Gary had seen this glow before, at Mt Moon. Gary's eyes moved to Erika, and he grinned. The light dimmed, and Gary gave his command. "Nidorino, use poison sting!"

Nidorino's newly gained, more powerful spikes pierced into Tangela while he thrashed in the pokemon's hold. Soon enough, Nidorino had escaped Tangela's hold and moved a short distance away. The tentacle pokemon wasn't looking too good, wobbling on its feet...

"Tangela, return." A red beam engulfed the pokemon. "Good job, it seems you've bested me Gary Oak." The woman had been walking towards him before recalling the pokemon, and she was already pretty close. "That pokemon was actually from my three badge team, I just wanted to test you with it."

Gary looked at her for a few seconds, before asking. "And how did I do?" The woman smiled and presented him with a badge. "Passably. I'd have been more impressed if you managed without a type advantage." Gary nodded and took the badge. "I could have used another pokemon, but I wanted Charmander to get some experience. Nidora- Nidorino was just the best pokemon for the situation."

"Indeed he was. Just look at him, so proud of his new form." Gary followed her words, and saw Nidorino basking in his newly attained form. The poisonous pokemon was standing around three feet tall now, and had considerably more spikes, as well as larger ears, than he had had before. "He is, isn't he?" Gary let a smirk fall onto his face, and recalled the pokemon.

"Well, it's time for me to go. More badges to win and all that. Dueces." And with that, Gary walked out of the gym.

 **(-o-)**

Ash was up early today. Why is that you ask? Its gym battling day! It was only seven in the morning, and Ash was already running around in the room he'd rented for that night, gathering his things. Once he had everything, he ran over to the still sleeping Mareep and picked her up over his head. "Cmon Mareep! Its gym battling day!" With a wide grin on his face, and shocked and sleepy Mareep draped over his shoulders, Ash ran down the stairs and through the pokemon center doors.

Once outside, Ash booked a left and ran. Weaving through the few pedestrians out this early in the morning, Ash made his way towards the gym. Just a few minutes later, probably record time mind you, Ash was standing in front of the pokemon gym. Ash walked up to the door and pulled on it… It didn't open. "Uhh… How do I get in here again?" Mareep made an uncomfortable noise, still on his shoulders. "Oh, sorry Mareep. Here, down you go." Ash reached up and pulled Mareep off his shoulders, setting her on the floor. The sheep pokemon proceeded to affectionately, but sleepily, nuzzle his leg before moving a short distance away.

"Now…" Ash pulled his pokedex out of his pocket, and began looking through the entry on the gyms. A short bit of searching later, and Ash was enlightened. "Ohh… So I do this." Ash pulled up his ID on his pokedex, and scanned it on the scanner beside the door. He'd been wondering what those were...

With a click, the door unlocked and Ash made his way inside. The inside of the gym was pretty plain, just an entryway with a few door and a counter, behind which was a woman, who was… sleeping, slumped over on the counter. Ash walked up to her. "Hello, ma'am? Ma'am?" Ash shook her shoulder and she shot up. "Wha? I wasn- Oh thank god… Er… How can I help you?" Ash grinned at her. "I'm here to challenge my first gym! Can you show me where the gym leader is?" The woman sleepily blinked a few times, before turning to the computer besides her. "Well, I can schedule a challenge for you if you want?"

"You can? That'd be great! I want to do it as soon as possible!" Ash beamed at her, ready to take on the gym leader right now. The woman turned back to him. "Well, I can get you your challenge today." Ash grinned at her, prepared to charge into the stadium. "At six pm. It's our last one for the day, too. Lucky." Ash deflated slightly. "So… What do I do now then?" The woman looked tiredly at him. "I dunno, explore the city?"

"Exploring it is!" With regained exuberance, Ash charged out of the gym into the city, before stopping and looking around, Mareep catching up behind him. "Now… Where to go? I guess I should just wander around. Gotta avoid the underground like Professor Elm said though… Wonder where that is?" With that, Ash began wandering the city, Mareep following behind him.

An hour or so later of wandering the streets, Ash came upon the Goldenrod City shopping mall. It was renowned as the region's largest shopping center, and it showed. The building was no less than ten stories tall, and took up most of a city block. It also happened to contain one of the things Ash had came to this city for. "Cmon Mareep! Let's go!" Ash rushed forward to go into the shopping center, but was stopped by a security guard stepping in front of him. "Sir. No pokemon allowed in the mall. Please return the mareep to its pokeball, and then you can continue."

"Aah… Okay. Mareep, return." The red beam of a returning pokemon flew into Mareep's pokeball, and Ash was allowed into the mall.

It was just as impressive as the outside would suggest. He could see all the way the the ceiling ten floors above, where a massive chandelier was hanging. Nine floors worth of balconies were above him, each of them hosting its own stores. Just on the floor he was on, he could see no less than fifteen stores, with multiple elevators and stairways leading up to the upper floors. This was a place anyone could get lost in. With a grin on his face, Ash headed into the mall.

Almost ten hours later, at 5:55 PM, Ash was standing in front of the gym once more. He'd had quite the exciting day, running through the mall and looking at all the interesting things it contained. He'd actually found a store that sold fossils. Fossils! They were super expensive though, so Ash had just had to move on. Eventually, he'd found what he was looking for: Stones. Specifically, a Fire Stone. It had cost him almost half the money his mom had given him for his journey, but he'd managed to buy it. Who knew those things cost so much?

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, Ash scanned his ID and ran into the gym's entreeway. After running over to the counter, Ash saw it was a different lady there this time. "Hi! I'm here for my gym battle!" The woman gave him a long look. "Alright. Can't believe she gave a beginner the last slot, but… Go ahead, Whitney's in the gym. Go through that door and follow the path to the door labelled 'Gym'." The woman waved her hand at a side door. Ash huffed slightly and walked through the door, he didn't look like a beginner right? I mean, he was but…

Shaking aside his thoughts, Ash found the door labelled 'Gym' and walked out into the stadium. There were stands to the sides, and there was a large crowd of people filling them. Ash had no idea why, of course, but they were there to watch the intense battles the gym usually had. They had no idea that this would be a one badge challenge, normally the last one was an upper badge challenge. Naturally, Ash assumed they were there for him, which wasn't technically wrong of course, and it really fired his spirit up a bit.

When Ash stepped onto the field across from the gym leader, Whitney, an announcer's voice cut through the rumblings of the crowd. "This will be a two on two pokemon battle, between Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town, and Whitney Akane, gym leader of Goldenrod City! There are no switches allowed, and each battle will continue until one pokemon is knocked out or returned!" The crowd's rumblings grew a bit louder. Across from Ash, Whitney looked pretty annoyed. Ash couldn't imagine why, after all, she was about to have a pokemon battle!

"Gym leader, challenger! On the count of three, release your first pokemon onto the field!"

Ash shifted gears from excited to focused, his eyes narrowing at Whitney. "One!" Ash's hand grabbed one of the pokeballs on his belt. "Two!" Ash pulled the ball from his belt, and in the same motion, flicked his hat to sit backwards on his head. "Three!" Ash pressed the release on his pokeball, thrusting his hand in front of him as he released his pokemon, Teddiursa, onto the field. Ash, of course, felt cool as could be whilst doing this.

Across from Teddiursa, Whitney had released a miltank. The pokemon seemed to bounce in place, awaiting an order from its trainer. Whitney, glaring slightly at Ash for giving her such a lame final battle, growled out. "Rollout." With that, the miltank launched, rolling across the field at Teddiursa. Ash's eyes widened, and he yelled out. "Teddiursa! Dodge it!" The little bear pokemon watched the approaching miltank, seemingly unimpressed. Was this supposed to intimidate him? The little pokemon had lived in Dark Cave all his life, and those annoying geodude did this sort of thing all the time.

When the miltank was close enough, Teddiursa simply leaped over it without even taking his honey-soaked fingers out of his mouth. Ash was gobsmacked, who knew Teddiursa could do that? Ash immediately refocused, the Miltank was turning around, speeding up as it did so. "Teddiursa! We need to break it out of that! Use the move we worked on in the forest!" Teddiursa nodded his head and almost immediately had to use the specified move, slamming his glowing black claw into Miltank's side as he sidestepped it.

Miltank crashed out of its rollout, coming to a stop before slowly getting up, shaking its head and turning back to face Teddiursa. Teddiursa hadn't been idle, and was charging the pokemon without needing Ash's guidance, as Ash yelled out. "Hit it with covet!" Teddiursa gave a savage, sharp-toothed grin, and smashed his paw into Miltank's jaw, simultaneously stealing the lum berry the poor pokemon had hanging around its neck as it was knocked onto its back. "Hit it with fury swipes while its down!" Teddiursa maintained the savage grin across his face as he slashed his claws across the miltank's torso, before a red light engulfed it and it was recalled.

"And Whitney has recalled her Miltank! This means the first round goes to Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town, folks!" The spectators, while not impressed at first, were very surprised at the new trainer successfully defeating the well known pokemon, and began cheering wildly for him.

Whitney looked… Both impressed, and upset. Ash had no way of knowing this, but she'd actually grabbed that miltank from her three badge team, the one known for thrashing new trainers. Either way, Whitney pulled her next pokeball from her belt and released it onto the field with Teddiursa.

Standing around a foot and a half tall, a cat pokemon was now smacking Teddiursa unexpectedly in the face with a fake out, sending him stumbling back a bit. Now well aware of the threat, Teddiursa rolled back, gaining some distance and recovering to examine the cat before him. Whitney's choice of second pokemon was, of course, a meowth. The cat was now licking its paw as it stared cockily at him.

"Meowth, get in there and hit him with fury swipes!" Whitney yelled out, and almost before Teddiursa could blink, the cat crossed the distance between them and was now slamming its claws into him. "Teddiursa! Knock it away with feint attack and use fling!" Teddiursa, hearing this, ignored the painful claws and slammed his paw into Meowth's jaw, knocking it away from him. He then threw the berry he'd stolen at the cat as hard as he could, smacking it in the head again.

After that altercation, Teddiursa was breathing very heavily, and was covered in cuts. Meowth, meanwhile, was still pretty fresh. A bit roughed up, to be sure, but the cat was back to arrogantly licking its paw as it watched him. "Meowth, payday." With that order from its trainer, Meowth crossed the distance between it and Teddiursa in the blink of an eye, slamming its paw into him. With the jingling of coins raining to the ground, Teddiursa dropped to the floor, unconscious.

"Ooh… And the Teddiursa is down. That's the second round to Whitney! Does the challenger have what it takes to finish this?" With that question, the crowd roared in approval as Ash released his second pokemon onto the field.

Growlithe looked around excitedly, happy to be in this new environment, and let out a couple excited barks before he noticed Meowth and lowered his body to the ground, his rear end shaking back and forth excitedly. "Growlithe! Keep your distance and hit it with ember attacks! If it gets close use bite!" Growlithe barked out an agreement, before jumping to his feet and launching an ember at Meowth, who casually stepped to the side. "Meowth, get in there with fury swipes!" The cat pokemon ran across the field, charging the slower dog pokemon and hitting it with a few scratches. The dog naturally responded by sinking his teeth into the cat's side.

"Now throw it away from you and use another ember!" Growlithe let out a growl as he tossed the cat away, before spitting an ember at it as it landed. The cat pokemon layed there for a short time before a red light engulfed it as it was recalled, clearly defeated. "And the winner is… Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town!" The crowd let out a roar of approval, the battle had proven far, far better than beginner trainers were even expected to approach, and they continued their cheers as Ash approached the gym leader.

Whitney looked up at Ash as he approached, fairly impressed. She had used pokemon from both her third and second badge teams, and the boy had still won. Not much compared to her best team, of course, but it was still something. "Congratulations." She handed him the badge. He grinned widely at her. "Thanks! That was so-" Ash was cut off, as a voice sounded unexpectedly through the speakers. "Attention, residents of Goldenrod City." The voice even echoed from outside, it seemed to be being broadcast throughout the city. Whitney immediately seemed on guard, this couldn't be good.

"It is our pleasure to announce the return of Team Rocket." The gym went dead silent as the voice continued. "As I'm sure you've noticed by now, our operatives have taken almost complete control of the city. You are surrounded, and there is nowhere to run. We have taken control of the radio tower, and there is now no contact to the outside world. Soon enough, all of your pokemon will be confiscated and all control of the city will be turned over to us. Welcome to the new Goldenrod, or rather, Rocket City."

 **A/N: And so it begins. I debated keeping this for later, but then I got a really good idea. So here's the wonderful intro of Team Rocket.**

 **Review Responses: Matt Z: I know what you mean. The sixth chapter had a lot more POV switches than I wanted, and way more Gary than I intended. I'm probably going to go back and rewrite it at some point. As you may have guessed from the way this chapter ended, this story is still going to be pretty Ash-centric. The next chapter, for example, will have little to no involvement from Gary whatsoever.**

 **IllMindBrandon: I responded to you personally, but I might as well reiterate for everyone else. Gary has little to nothing in common with Ash from canon beyond one pokemon, and Ash's team is still in its earliest state. As for an actual focus, well, this chapter is where the fun begins, like I told you.**


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: I've decided to do a weekly update schedule from here on out. It'll give me more time to go through things, and I'll be able to finish a few chapters in advance. I'm thinking Friday or Saturday uploads. It might not be every week, especially in the coming month. I'm gonna be pretty busy.**

 _Italics_ **is psychic talk.**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon.**

An Alternate Adventure

Chapter Eight

Operation: Trident

Lance the Dragon Master, Champion of the Elite Four was on the back of one of his dragons, flying south as fast as he was able. Behind him, the Seafoam Islands had just faded into the distance. Of the Elite Four, he was the one most clearly suited to his current mission: Finding and saving the survivors of the S.S. Anne's wreck.

A few hours ago, the Elite Four had begun getting reports. The most pressing concern at the moment, aside from his current mission of attempting to save the almost three thousand people that had been aboard the S.S. Anne, was Team Rocket's takeover of Cinnabar Island. From the reports they had received, everything had seemed normal until a force of around fifty Rockets had surged out of the abandoned Pokemon Mansion and taken hold of the small island of only around a hundred and fifty occupants. As of now, the Rockets were in complete control of the island. The gym leader, Blaine's, status was unknown. Bruno and Karen were in route to the island, along with some of the specially trained task force the Indigo League had gathered in the past ten years under his leadership.

To the west, in Johto, all communications had been cut off completely. This could only be due to something going wrong with the Radio Tower in Goldenrod City. It was, among other things, the only radio station in Johto tall and powerful enough to reach over the Silverpeak Mountains. They had sent Will, the newest member of the Elite Four, to go investigate the issue along with a small team of Indigo's elite task force.

Agatha, the most senior member of the Elite Four, was tasked with managing their current operations from her position on Indigo Plateau. She had been particularly suspicious of the Radio Tower in Johto going out, but Lance had had to overrule her on that one. There was just too much going on at the moment to send any more than they already had.

With all that said, however, Lance swooped down on his Dragonite to go pick up the first survivor he had found.

 **(-o-)**

"Make your way to the Radio Tower, give up your pokemon, and you may be spared." With that, the announcement cut off and the gym remained dead silent. The first one to move was Whitney, and all eyes went to her as she calmly made her way over to the stand containing her pokeballs. When Whitney spoke, everyone in the room could hear her clearly with how dead silent it was. "We can't stay in the gym. With control of the city taken, there's only a matter of time until they break in." She picked her pokeballs off of the stand, all sixteen of them from her various teams, and placed them on her belt or otherwise on her person. "Stay with me, I'll get you all out of the city. Remember to keep quiet, we don't want to attract too much attention."

The crowd of around fifty people, normally much more rowdy, gave a low, consenting rumble. Most of them didn't have more than maybe one pokemon with them, some of them not even that, it was a rare choice of career path to actively pursue pokemon training. The world only really needed trainers for war and dealing with wild pokemon. And sport, of course, but the other two came hand in hand with that.

"Alright, this way then." Whitney slowly walked through a side door, Ash and the crowd following behind her. Once she was sure they'd caught up to her, Whitney sped up a bit and soon stepped out a door into a back alley. "Keep very quiet." Whitney released a pokemon from her belt. It was a strange, probably foreign pokemon and quietly spoke to it. "Lopunny, if you see anyone in our path, please knock them out. We need to get out of the city unnoticed." The bunny pokemon nodded and lightly skipped ahead of them, like it wasn't in the middle of what basically amounted to a warzone.

Whitney waved her arm forward, gesturing for the crowd to follow the lopunny, the did so, and Whitney fell to the back, where Ash was following the rest. The lopunny led them in a winding path through the back alleys of the city, before coming upon one of the main streets. They would have to cross here, but there was a few Rockets out in the street, sneering as they watched some residents of the city walk through on their way to the Radio Tower. Whitney soon went to the front of their group, and sighed. This would require more than just Lopunny. Whitney reached to her belt and released three more pokemon.

"Lopunny, Persian, Furret, Ursaring. You see those guys dressed with the Rs? Go knock them out for me." With that order, the pokemon surged out of the alley, charging the Rockets and knocking them out as quickly as possible. To their luck, they managed to get all eight of the rockets within view without alerting the rest. "Alright, cmon." Whitney waved them forward to follow Lopunny, who was now waiting patiently at the entrance to another alleyway. Whitney recalled the other three as she followed behind the group.

This process continued for around twenty minutes before they reached where the city merged with Ilex Forest. Before they left, Whitney stopped them. "I need to go back into the city. It is my job to defend it. You lot will have to go on without me. Stay with someone who has a pokemon, and be careful. Hopefully you can escape to one of the other cities." With that, Whitney and Lopunny headed back into the city.

The group stood there for a few seconds, not sure what to do. Ash, naturally, decided now was the time for him to take charge. "Cmon, into the forest." Ash stepped into the forest, and began walking. The former spectators of his match with Whitney followed, really not sure what else to do. It was fairly quiet for the next few minutes, until Ash had determined that they were probably far enough from the city, and he stopped, waiting for everyone to catch up. "So… Now what do we do?" Ash really wasn't experienced in any situation even a bit like this, so he looked to the young adults around him, hoping one of them would have an answer. After a few minutes, it became clear that they didn't. Ash didn't really understand this, but the reason none of them had any idea what to do was because they hadn't gotten very far in their pokemon journey, if they even went on one.

Very few people had the skill necessary to train pokemon well, or the determination to continue to do so, and the ones who did generally didn't bother watching just any gym challenge. Because of this, most of the people in the group Ash found himself were actually less experienced in survival situations than he himself was, and he was forced to make a choice. "Uhh… Okay then… Who here has a pokemon?"

Around a third of the group rose their hands. "Alright, does anyone here know how to get supplies or have supplies on them?" Around five people rose their hands. "And how many of you know how to get supplies, like food and stuff?" All of them lowered their hands… That complicated things. "Well, let's pool our supplies together then. I bought around a month of food for myself while I was at the mall today, and I can give most of it away." The process of passing supplies out took around fifteen minutes, and once they were done everyone had around three days of supplies, if they rationed it. They would just have to rough it if it took longer than that to get to wherever they were going to go.

"Well, now that that's done… We need to split up. A large group will be too easy to track, right?" That's what all the stories he'd read growing up said anyways, hopefully they were right, because five minutes later, Ash was leading three other people through the forest. None of the others with him had any pokemon, he was their defender now. He was letting the eighteen year old at the front of the group lead the group. The man apparently worked at one of the stores in the mall, his name was John.

The other two with them were two teenage sisters by the name of Lisa and Jasmine. They were going to school in the city, and were at the gym because they enjoyed watching the battles after school, even if they'd chosen to give up on pokemon themselves.

Ash himself was walking at the back of the group. Mareep was walking beside him, alert and ready in case of anyone showing up. He'd made sure to use some potions on Growlithe and Teddiursa before they began walking, but the potions really only healed wounds, the two would still need a bit of rest before they'd be back to full strength.

Ash had suggested the group head south for multiple reasons, and they were now headed towards Azalea Town. Most of the other groups couldn't do so, due to not having any way to get food. For his group, Teddiursa could find plenty of berries for them if they needed some. It would also serve as a distraction for the rest of the groups should Team Rocket decide to follow them. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that, but Ash was unfortunately aware that it might. If it came to that, well, Ash would do what he could. For now, all he could do is follow behind them and keep an eye out.

A few hours later, their little group stopped under a tree to eat. As Ash was biting into the sandwich he'd kept, one of the girls let out a question. "Do you think everyone in Goldenrod is okay?" She seemed to have been holding the question in for awhile. John seemed a bit uncomfortable, and didn't answer, so Ash decided to say something. "I think they'll be okay. Those Rocket guys just said they have to turn in their pokemon right?" The group was silent for a short time, before John opened his mouth to speak. "I-"

"Don't think so." A voice cut in from the side. Ash's head turned immediately to face the person who interrupted. There, leaning against a tree and grinning cockily at them, was a man dressed in the Team Rocket uniform. "At least, assuming we're following the plan, that is." Ash stood up, and Mareep took an aggressive stance next to him.

The Rocket let out a mocking laugh. "What? You really think you can take me? Well, I've certainly got time to kill, let's play then, boy." The Rocket pressed the release on a pokeball on his belt, and one of his pokemon was released.

"Raticate, take care of that boy's sheep. Shouldn't be an issue for you, right?" The giant rat, standing a few inches taller than the Mareep across from it, made an affirmative nod, before running at Mareep. "Mareep! Use thunder wave and dodge it!" Mareep didn't bother acknowledging his words, and continued the motions she had already begun to do, jumping back from the rat and throwing a wave of electricity at it.

The rat was slowed down quite a bit, but it still charged at Mareep. Luckily, the paralysis had slowed it down just enough that Mareep was just a bit faster than it, and so she was able to keep a bit of distance from the rat. "Alright, Mareep! Hit it with Electro Ball!" The sheep pokemon gathered a ball of electricity on its tail, before jumping into the air and flipping it down at the raticate.

With a small blast of electricity, the raticate fell to the ground. The Rocket seemed pretty surprised. "Huh… You beat Raticate. Well, no matter. Zubat might be useless against you, but I still have this." The rocket pressed the release on one of his pokeballs, and out came a… Dratini? The pokemon was big, almost six feet in length from end to end, and was around as big around as Ash's leg. It seemed a bit angry, and looked back at the Rocket in annoyance. "That's right, I've got a dragon pokemon! I stole it from the casino when we took control of them this morning!" The Rocket seemed very confident in his victory. Ash, however, was not. Ash recalled Mareep.

"Dratini, do you really want to work with that criminal? He's probably gonna hurt a lot of people…" If there was one pokemon Ash had really researched, it was the Indigo League Champion's pokemon of choice, Dragonite. Naturally, that came with the rest of its species. Among the other many things he had learned about them, the one that was most important was the pokemon species' kind nature. The fully grown ones are said to save people from drowning, as well as a whole host of other kind things.

Naturally, the pokemon did not care for its new trainer, and began slowly, menacingly slithering towards the Rocket. The man, scared silly, froze up, not remembering that he could just recall the pokemon. With an angry sounding roar, the Dratini launched itself at the man, knocking him to the ground before coiling around him tightly.

Ash walked over to the downed man, and crouched down beside him. He gently pushed Dratini's tail out of the way, and began taking the man's pokeballs from his belt. "Hey! You can't take those! Those are mine!" The man yelled at Ash angrily.

Ash stood up, and looked down at the man. "Well, you're a pokemon thief right?" The man looked back at Ash, before responding. "Well… Yeah?" Ash nodded confidently. "Then, in place of the police, I'm confiscating your pokemon." The man stared at Ash uncomprehendingly.

Ash pressed the button on Dratini's pokeball, and recalled it as he walked away. "You should leave, can't really do much to us without your pokemon right?" The Rocket gaped at the boy as he waved for his group to follow him… Had he just had the tables turned on him? That kid stole his pokemon!

...What could he do about it, though? He didn't have any pokemon, after all. The Rocket stood up, and began to walk back the way he came, preparing himself for what his boss would do to him for losing so badly… To his own pokemon, even!

 **(-o-)**

Whitney was… in shock. She'd had her whole pokemon team, the one she used on her own journey, that had won third place in the Indigo League… And she'd lost. The man on the road across from her, dressed in a Rocket Admin uniform, not even their boss, had ripped her pokemon apart like they were nothing. And now he was laughing at her! Laughing! "You really thought you stood a chance, girl?! I've prepared almost twenty years for this day, you are nothing to me! Nothing. And now, you'll be even less than that. Tyranitar, hyper beam."

The towering pokemon that had ripped through half her pokemon turned its gaze on her, and opened its maw, a bright ball of energy charging within it. With fear in her eyes, the gym leader of Goldenrod City watched as a bright beam of energy was launched at her, and then knew no more.

 **(-o-)**

Just minutes later, Will of the Elite Four, along with a small squad of four elite trainers and Will's Xatu, appeared in a flash of light outside the Radio Tower, just a short distance away from the Radio Tower and took in the situation. They had teleported there as soon as they could, but it had taken some time before the blackout in the Radio Tower was noticed. As it was, the speed they were able to get there was only due to Will's extremely powerful psychic types.

A short distance away from them, a still smoking crater was carved into the road, and surrounding them… "Ah, Will of the Elite Four. Their newest member, if I'm not mistaken." The voice came from the door to the Radio Tower. When Will turned to look, he saw an man, probably around fifty years old, dressed in a plain black suit. He was wearing a black hat, and his eyes were hidden in shadow. In every direction from the team that had teleported in were people dressed in rocket uniforms. The man before them, likely the boss, chuckled and reached into his sports coat and pulled out a pokeball, releasing the pokemon inside, which proceeded to perch on his shoulder, a Honchkrow. "You know what to do."

The large crow pokemon let out an echoing caw, and with it, released a wave of dark energy. "Wouldn't want my guests to get away, after all." The man stepped down the Radio Tower's entry stairs, walking towards the group. Will stared him down. "Who are you?" The man smirked at him, and pulled his hat off of his head, revealing himself to the world. "What? You don't recognize me? I am Giovanni, the Boss of Team Rocket."

"Normally, I might not be so open about that, but, well…" The man looked straight into Will's eyes. "Dead men tell no tales."

Will narrowed his eyes, while also having a psychic conversation with Xatu. The man sure was confident, and as much as Will hated to admit it, he was probably right to be. He'd been the eighth gym leader of Kanto for years before he was outed as the leader of Team Rocket, after all. Even before he disappeared, he was almost on the Elite Four's level. Twenty years of training could only have made him stronger. Will would have to win, however. If he didn't… _Xatu, use Air Slash._

Xatu immediately sprang into motion, powerfully swinging his wings forward and throwing a powerful gust of cutting air at the Honchkrow on Giovanni's shoulder. Giovanni himself rolled to the side, Honchkrow flying over the attack. "Deal with the underlings! Giovanni's mine!" With that, the team of four released pokemon to battle the surrounding grunts, while Will began his battle with Giovanni.

While Will had been distracted, Giovanni had recovered. "Honchkrow, get in there with a Night Slash." Honchkrow let out an acknowledging caw as it flew at Xatu, who dodged the darkly glowing wing the other bird had attempted to hit it with. Honchkrow then flew up above the battle, Xatu following behind it. "Seems Honchkrow wants to take his battle elsewhere…" Giovanni released his next pokemon, a Kangaskhan, while Will released his own Slowbro.

"Get in there and hit him with a mega punch, Kangaskhan." The kangaroo pokemon rushed forward with its fist pulled back. _Slowbro, block with your shell, then hit him with a zen headbutt._ Slowbro swung his tail around, blocking the punch. "Sucker punch." As Slowpoke moved to headbutt Kangaskhan, the kangaroo's other fist slammed into his soft stomach, glowing black. Slowbro was knocked onto his back from the strength of the blow. "Now, mega punch." Kangaskhan jumped into the air, raising her fist and smashing it into the downed Slowbro, smashing him through the concrete of the street in a small crater.

When the dust cleared, Slowbro was unconscious… at best, and Will recalled him. This battle… did not seem to be in his favor. Perhaps if he'd listened to Agatha… No, he would win this. He had to.

Will pressed the release on his next pokeball, sending one of his most dangerous pokemon onto the field, Gardevoir. He'd befriended the graceful pokemon just over a year ago during an expedition to Hoenn. It had been one of the first peaceful visits to the region across the sea since before the war, and it had gone very well, both for him and for the regions.

With that aside, however… _Gardevoir, teleport/double team tactics._ Gardevoir made no indication of having heard him, but images of her began to appear all over the battlefield. "Ah… Double team, eh?" The dangerous man across from him seemed mildly impressed. _Gardevoir, hit it with psychic._ With that, Gardevoir began to hit the pokemon with invisible psychic blasts while teleporting between her images. While Kangaskhan staggered from the many blasts hitting her, Giovanni gave a nod. "So that's what it is. Kangaskhan, sandstorm."

Kangaskhan responded to the order almost immediately, slamming her claws into the ground beneath her to hold herself in place against the psychic attacks, while also using the move her master had taught her years ago. A few seconds later, a sandstorm was whipping through the road. "Good job Kangaskhan, return." With that, Giovanni recalled the somewhat battered pokemon and sent out a new contender, Persian.

"You know what to do, Persian." And the cat certainly did, as it disappeared into the sandstorm, becoming nearly invisible in seconds. _Gardevoir, try to find it and put it down with a pyshock._

It was only minutes later that Will was hit with the true purpose of this strategy, as Persian leapt out of the sandstorm at him with her claw glowing black, and swiped across his throat from left to right, dropping the elite trainer to the ground.

The last thing Will saw before the light faded from his eyes, was his beloved starter, Xatu, falling from the sky.

 **A/N: And so it begins. I originally intended to make this one longer, but this seems like a good ending point to me. I know that Will pretty much got thrashed in this, but keep in mind that he is the newest and weakest member of the elite four. If it were, say, Agatha there instead of him, she might have fared better. Anyways, time for some review responses.**

 **RR: Eevee: That's perfectly fine, I understand completely. The offer, of course, is still open if you ever change your mind. As for the thing with Gary, I only kept it separate in the first place because it didn't occur to me until after I began writing this story. I plan to continue forward with the combined story.**

 **Mistress1296: I have no plans of removing Gary from the story. If you feel I cannot write anything interesting about him, then that's fine. Just skip Gary's part, or the whole story. Doesn't really matter to me, friendo.**

 **To everyone else, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.**


	9. Chapter 9Update

**A/N: Well, I think I've been gone long enough, don't you? Well over a year has got to be pretty up there as far as hiatuses go. Anywho, onto the update.**

 **As of right now, I'm planning on doing a full rewrite of An Alternate Adventure. I loved what I did with the story, but I feel I wrote it with less skill than I could manage now. The past year has been... Trying for me, but I've learned quite a lot, and changed quite a bit as a person. With all that, it wouldn't feel right to come back and try to continue off where I was last time I updated this story. I can, and will, do much better.**

 **With all that said, the rewrite won't go up for at least another week or two, most likely. Unless I get really into it or something, who knows?**

 **With that said, I will give you what I did end up getting done before I abandoned writing this altogether, over a year ago. Please, enjoy.**

An Alternate Adventure

Chapter Nine

The Shrouded Journey Begins

Giovanni was… Ecstatic, to say the least. Everything was going according to plan. Communications were cut with the eastern side of the Indigo League, and all of Goldenrod had fallen under his control. He'd even received word that the escapees that had been headed to Violet City had been captured, which only played even more into his hand.

The best part of the whole thing, however, was that the Elite Four's hands were tied. With Will's disappearance, they couldn't risk sending a small team into Goldenrod, regardless of what they suspected. They would need to gain more information before they could send a larger group into his city, which wouldn't be easy with his operatives across the region sabotaging Johto's ability to communicate with even itself, as well as the lack of any information escaping Goldenrod in the first place.

They would gather the information they needed to to make a move eventually, of course, but by then Giovanni would be more than ready. Yes, everything was going according to plan…

(-o-)

In Ilex Forest, well… things were not going according to plan. Ash and Co. were currently running for their lives, in fact. Behind them, a swarm of beedrill followed angrily. "Why would you do that!?" An angry voice, Lisa was her name if Ash remembered correctly, yelled out.

"How was I supposed to know there were beedrill?!" Jasmine, her sister, called out as they both ran in front of Ash. "Oh, I don't know, maybe because it was honey!?" Lisa did not appreciate her sister's question very much, it seems. Ash, as he ran, was looking for a straightforward path. He needed it to get them out of this.

Soon enough he found what he was looking for, and threw the pokeball he had had in his hand forward and over the heads of the two sisters, landing a good distance in front of them. "Run past her! Mareep use Thunder Wave!" Ash called out his instructions, and his companions followed, trusting in the boy for what must have been the thousandth time. As Ash ran past Mareep, he scooped up her pokeball. After he heard the telltale sound of electricity, he pointed the ball behind himself and pressed the button without stopping his run. "Keep running! Mareep slowed them down!"

Five long, tiring minutes of running later, the group was collapsed in a small clearing, hopefully far enough from the beedrill to be safe. After recovering his breath, Ash sent a weak glare at Jasmine. "Jasmine…"

The girl gave Ash a slightly embarrassed, but mostly tired look. "Yes…?"

"Leave the food to Teddiursa. We're not even that low yet…" With that said, Ash pulled out his pokedex and began to look through it. Over the past few days, the group had grown quite used to this. When Ash pulled the pokedex out, it generally meant they were done moving for the day. John, as he had for the past few days, was the first to get up and begin gathering wood. The sisters followed him to help out. None of them expected Ash to help out with this, his job was to guide them and keep them all alive, and as the incident with the beedrills had proved, he was certainly capable of it. Ash himself was looking into beedrills, to avoid another incident like the one they had just had.

Absentmindedly, Ash pressed the button on one of his pokeballs, releasing Teddiursa. Ash turned his attention to the little pokemon. "Hey buddy, I need you to get some berries for the group, okay?" The little bear pokemon gave Ash an annoyed look, before shaking his head. The boy had been having him do this every night this week. "Cmon, Teddiursa… I'll give you some honey later?" Teddiursa gave him a long look, before nodding and running off.

Ash let out a sigh and turned back to his pokedex. Hopefully Teddiursa didn't stay that standoffish forever…

(-o-)

The next day, around noon, they finally reached their destination: Azalea Town. "Well, we're here. You guys should be able to get some help at the pokemon center." Ash let out, facing his companions.

The group was quiet for awhile, before Lisa spoke up. "What about you? What are you going to do?"

"I need to see the gym leader. I gotta tell him what happened. Hopefully he knows what to do."

"So… This is goodbye?" This time, the response came from John. Ash looked up at the man, and gave a nod. "Well… Goodbye then!" Jasmine said, and was backed up by her sister Lisa. "Yeah, goodbye… And thank you, Ash." With that, the group went its separate ways. They hadn't really been close, but Ash was sad to see them go anyways. With a sigh, Ash turned and began to walk towards the pokemon gym.

When he arrived in the gym, he found himself rather impressed. The building was rather large, the largest in the town in fact, and housed what basically amounted to a miniature forest. To the left from the entryway was a field clearly set aside for battles, though it was curiously devoid of any stands or anything of the sort. Sitting on the ground against a tree was a boy about a year or two older than Ash was. Upon sight, Ash could almost immediately tell who this was: Bugsy, the youngest gym leader in history. The boy had finished his journey through Johto in just four months, and then proceeded to crush far more experienced trainers in the Indigo League tournament he had participated in. The boy had finished in fourth place, losing to an opponent that had multiple fire and flying type pokemon, his type's natural weakness. Afterwards, he had heard about his home's lack of a gym leader due to the previous one retiring, and went through the necessary qualifications to take the spot.

 **A/N: And that's all I had done, not a whole lot there is there? Unfortunately, that's all there's gonna be until I do the rewrite.**

 **I hope you're looking forward to it as much as I am.**

 **Best Regards,**

 **JokerInc**


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